


The Devil In The Dark

by strixus



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Gundam Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Dubious Consent, Implied D/s, M/M, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-06
Updated: 2010-04-06
Packaged: 2017-10-08 18:14:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/78196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strixus/pseuds/strixus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Something is stalking Heero Yuy's dreams. And that something has the ability to stride between worlds. And it wants more than just dreams.</p></blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There is a place between worlds where the eternal things sleep: the old gods, and things older than gods, demons and angels past their primes, and concepts and ideas the universe no longer has need of in its self. This is a place of madness, of nothingness, of eternity and instants, where the elder things sleep, their minds filled with nightmares of reality. And in this place dwell the mortals who reached out and touched the face of creation. In the darkness between worlds, something stirs, and shifts in the weightlessness of non-existence. White feathers and burnt flesh move, and blue eyes open, and somewhere, someone wakes from a nightmare with a scream.

* * *

Sleep shattered like a pane of glass struck with a hammer. It had been the same dream again, the same chaos of images and sound, that had awoken Heero Yui from his sleep for the last eight nights. Unused to dreams at all, let alone repeating nightmares - and there was no other way he could classify the dream but as a nightmare - it was disconcerting and disturbing. He was sitting upright in the darkness of the bedroom, his breath coming in ragged gasps that sounded too loud to his ears. The sheet clung to his skin, damp with sweat, tangled around his lower body uncomfortably.

Running his hands through his hair, Heero stared into the darkness, replaying the images from the dream in his mind. The chaos of movement and color that had erupted out of the darkness of sleep to engulf him like a wave drowning him and pulling him out to sea, the soft, deep voice whispering wordlessly in his ears that made him want to plug his ears before it drove him mad, and then the feeling of hands on his shoulders and back holding him from running away, hands that touched lightly but felt as though they would crush him - all of those had been terrifying enough, but then there were the eyes. Ice blue, they opened out of the chaos and movement, looking not at him but into him, burning cold points that blew apart the rest of the dream, leaving only the eyes. And then he would start awake, sitting up before he was even completely awake, with the feeling that he had yelled in his sleep, his body shivering and his skin drenched in cold sweat.

He glanced at the only light source in the room, the teal glow of the LCD clock on the bed stand, and was made painfully aware of how little sleep he had gotten. But he knew he would not get back to sleep again. With nothing else to do, and no real urge to stay in bed, Heero detangled himself from the sheets and got up to take a shower.

* * *

The telephone rang suddenly that afternoon, startling Heero for a moment before he registered what it was. He stood up from the corner desk that supported the desktop system he had built as an extension of his laptop and picked up the portable phone from its cradle on the end table near the bed.

"Hai?" He said. Anyone who had the number to his home line was calling him for a reason, most usually to ask him a question.  
"Hello, Heero." The voice on the other end of the line was Trowa, nothing unusual there. "Duo asked me to call you." Heero frowned, but said nothing. "He wants the four of us to meet for dinner and an evening out tonight."

Heero hesitated for a moment. Any other time, he would have said no, say goodbye to Trowa, and hung up without a second thought. But anything, even a night out with Duo, would be better than another night going to sleep only to be woken up by the nightmare again.

"Heero?" Trowa asked. "Are you still there?"

"Sorry, yes I'll be there." He could hear Trowa's shocked silence "Where will we be meeting?" Heero scribbled the information on to his digital assistant as Trowa told him. "I'll see you there, then."

Trowa said something to the same affect and then hung up.

* * *

In less than four hours after he had gotten off the phone with Trowa, Heero was getting off the train in Neo New York. He had called Trowa an hour earlier while still on the train and made arrangements for a driver to be waiting for him at New Grand Central. The driver was waiting for him at the platform, looking subtly dangerous in the black driver's uniform that was meant to disguise his real purpose. While he had no problem moving around San Francisco without a bodyguard, Neo New York was a different story entirely for Heero Yui.

The bodyguard turned driver ushered him to the waiting car, something black and armored looking, opening and closing the back door for him before climbing in himself. The driver told him they would be at their destination in 20 minutes and to help himself to the contents of the bar fridge beneath the back seat. Curious, Heero opened the small ice chest like refrigerator door and looked in, only to find it stocked with his preferred brand of vodka and four bottles of the only beer he would drink. Trowa, it seemed, remembered his habits very well.

Heero simply closed his eyes and let the city slide by out side the car as they drove towards their destination. As much as he would have liked a drink to begin the evening early, he wanted to remain alert for the moment and to make the evening last as long as possible. He already knew how the evening would end, and had no desire to see it until within at least two hours of dawn, if not closer. The longer he could avoid sleep, the better.

He felt the car slow, and opened his eyes to find the car pulling up in front of the restaurant Trowa had indicated when he had called.

"We're here, Mr. Yui." The driver said.

* * *

Heero was shown to a back room of the restaurant, a place whose genre of food was not betrayed by its decor nor its staff, but whose owner Heero knew all too well. The three others were already there, sitting around a round table in the far corner of the room: Trowa dressed in his usual conservative casual, leaning forward on the table and turned to talk to Quatre across the table, who wore a dark blue turtle neck pulled up nearly to his chin and who was looking around the table, eyes darting but face smiling, and Duo sat between them, grin plastered on his face, talking back and forth to Trowa and Quatre.

As he walked in, Trowa's face lit up for a moment, and then, almost embarrassed, the look vanished. Quatre looked over and smiled weakly, then looked at Duo, who stood, smiled even wider, if that were possible, and threw open his arms as though he were going to hug Heero from across the table.

"Heero! You actually made it!" Duo tossed his head, making his braid bounce wildly. "Now the party can really get started!"  
"Come have a seat, Heero. We were waiting on you to have the food brought out. Nathaniel really out did himself this time." Trowa smiled, talking proudly of his head chef. Heero joined the table silently, taking the seat offered to him by Trowa. As he did so, two bus boys appeared from nowhere, as though from the walls, laden with trays. They filled the table with four large bowls of salad, and set decanters of wine beside them, then vanished just as suddenly.

Trowa smiled, poured the first glass of wine for himself, something dark red and glowing, and raised the glass over the table.  
"To the survivors." He toasted. Each of them poured their own glass, and echoed the toast.

* * *

The meal ended after six courses of the food that had made Trowa's restaurant modestly famous, and for a while the four sat talking. More accurately, Duo talked, Trowa commented, Quatre looked nervous, and Heero listened silently. Duo talked about how well his biotech venture was going, about the plans to integrate the Gundam technology with bio-engineered structures and computing, about everything that had happened to him since the four had been together six months ago.

The things he didn't mention were far more interesting to Heero. He noticed right off the looks Quatre was giving Duo throughout the meal, and the constant adjustment he gave the blue turtleneck collar, as well as what was obviously hidden beneath. He had heard about Duo and Quatre from Trowa in passing, but had not realized how little Duo had changed since the long months of the two wars Heero and Duo had spent together. Seeing this made him reconsider some of his thoughts on Duo, but only a few. He was still loud, prideful, and self centered, but not nearly as shallow as others might suspect.

The entire meal had passed without much incident or substance, and Heero hoped the rest of the night passed equally as well. The wines Trowa had picked for dinner had been perfect for the food, and light enough that his head was still clear after three glasses. The only event that set his mind truly questioning was at one point when his mind had wandered away from the table nearly completely, he was snapped back suddenly by a touch on his hand. He looked down to see that Trowa had laid his hand across Heero's, almost absentmindedly. Heero only glanced at it, and pulled his hand away slowly, masking it under going for his glass.

* * *

After what had felt like hours of discussion, at last the group of four adjourned from the restaurant. The entire kitchen staff came out before they left and bid their boss a good evening, and gave a cheer for the four who had once been the heroes of the world. But that had been a long time ago, or so it felt to Heero, who only felt wearied by the cheers. As they pilled into the large black car that Trowa had called for them for the night, its driver the same tall young man with the subtly dangerous look to him who had driven Heero from the train depot, Duo was talking about the club they were headed to, quite a wonderful place he said, but Heero only tuned him out.

His thoughts were wandering, as they had become want to do lately with his lack of sleep. Once, he could have gone nearly fifteen days on less than an hour's sleep a day, but now, he was suffering on having slept perhaps four hours a night for the last eight nights. And where they wandered too was of course, back to his nightmare. Maybe this night would be the cure, if he could get himself distracted enough and exhausted enough to sleep though the night, maybe, just maybe, the dream would not come back.  
The car surged, and Duo whooped loudly, making Heero wince inwardly. At least, Heero thought, I don't look as bad as Quatre, who looks as though he's expecting a beating when he gets home. Remembering Duo, Heero suppressed a shudder, and realized that might very well be the case. But what ever the case might be, they were on there way to the club Duo had bought four months ago, and renamed Babylon.

* * *

Occupying four of the uppermost floors of one of the tallest buildings of the Neo New York skyline, a pillar of black glass that punctured the atmospheric control dome that shielded most of what had once been Manhattan before the rebuilding projects had redirected the rivers and leveled the terrain, Babylon was every ounce as decadent and depraved as its historical namesake had been, if not more so. The lowest floor was a sea of human bodies awash in light and sound, dancing as though possessed by something summoned forth by the music, each moving in their own way amid the chaos of the dance floor. The second and third floors, more accurately overhangs over the dance floor wide enough for foot traffic and tables, housed the four primary bars, and a microcosm of a restaurant. Suspended at random levels in the open space over the dance floor were a myriad of transparent silver and white spheres, each illuminated to reveal a female or male silhouette dancing in the same way as the masses below, puppets of the music being generated by the caged in DJ suspended in the teardrop shaped platform that hung down from the ceiling of the third floor.  
"Duo has done such an excellent job with this place." Trowa commented as the four stepped off the private elevator they had taken up into the cacophony of light and noise.

"Trowa, Heero, why don't you two go make yourselves comfortable at the bar while I go check on things up stairs." Duo said, smiling proudly. "Once that bit of unpleasant work is taken care of, we can really get this night started." With that, Duo, followed closely by Quatre, stepped back onto the elevator, and vanished as the mirror finish doors slid shut behind them.  
Trowa turned and looked at Heero, shrugged, and started making his way towards L shaped arc of steel and glass that was the closest bar. Heero, shrugged inwardly to himself, and followed.

* * *

"So how long has it been going on like this?" Heero asked, looking over at Trowa seated next to him at the bar.

Trowa looked over at him with a questioned look, and then realized where the topic had shifted. "Oh, you mean Duo and Quatre? About two months from what I can tell. At least that was the first time I saw him in the collar in public." Trowa took a drink from the brown bottled import the bar tender had handed him. "They've been together longer, but I don't think Duo sprung that on him first thing. But you know Quatre, it was bound to happen eventually with someone."

"You're probably right." Heero said, "I wouldn't know from first hand experience, unlike some people, though." The jab had come out more barbed than he intended, but Trowa understood the comment as it was meant.

"It was inevitable that wasn't going to work out." Trowa took another drink from the beer. "At least you and Duo never kidded yourselves about the status of things."

Heero frowned. "Only from my point of view. Duo never did really understand that." Heero shrugged. "At least I know Duo was like that before I ever touched him."

"Not much of a comfort, is it?"

"No. Not really."

"What about you, Heero? You haven't said a word all night about how your life is going?"

"Same as it has since we all settled down after those six months after the wars ended." The implications of that statement Trowa understood very well: he was still living as a hermit, without a care in the world beyond the door of the loft he lived in, and while he wasn't happy, it was against his nature to be anything else.

"As much as it seems we have all changed since then," Trowa looked over at Heero and laid his hand over Heero's where it sat on the bar next to his drink, "We really haven't changed that much, have we, Heero?"

Heero shook his head. "No, we haven't changed that much at all." He looked down at Trowa's hand, then reached for his drink with the other. He took a long drink that finished off the glass. "Not very much at all."

* * *

An hour later, Duo and Quatre appeared behind them at the bar. "Boys!" Duo yelled excitedly, slapping down his hands on their backs, "What do you think of the place?"

Heero and Trowa turned their stools around and looked at Duo and Quatre. Both had changed clothes, and while Duo only managed to look more flamboyant than ever in his white suit, Quatre looked as though he wanted to find a rock to crawl under and hide how much flesh was exposed by the net shirt he was wearing. Out of the corner of his eye, Heero saw Trowa's fists clench and his eyes narrow at Duo, but his voice was perfectly civil when he spoke.

"Like I said, you've done such a great job with this place, Duo." Trowa raised his second beer in a loose toast. "Excellent purchase, Duo. Wish I had thought to buy it first." Duo's grin widened at the complement.  
"Well, enjoy, boys! I'm off to go enjoy the DJ that I got at a steal of a price. Don't spend the whole night drinking - go dance some!" And with that, Duo vanished back into the crowd, Quatre in tow behind him on a four-foot leash.  
Trowa looked down at his beer and then over at Heero. "I think its time to switch to something stronger. How's that ... whatever it is... you're drinking?"

Heero waved the bartender over and asked for a second sake cup. "As good as you can get on this coast." Heero said as he poured the other cup full of the hot clear alcohol and topped off his own. He picked up his own cup and downed it, and Trowa followed suit.  
"Damn!" Trowa gagged. "That tastes like hot pen ink! But what a kick!"

"Drink enough and I promise you won't care about the taste any more." Heero said with a smile.

"So this is how the perfect solder chases off the demons." Trowa said, looking over the ceramic cup he was about to take a slower sip.  
"One has to do something to occupy the evenings."

Trowa finished the second cup full. "I agree completely."

Heero smiled, and poured the third round.

* * *

Heero had no idea how much later it was, only that the club still had a nearly full crowd and that he was about halfway through the third bottle of hot sake that he was sharing with Trowa. The flow of people moved constantly behind their heads, inches away usually, and Heero had paid little attention to them for most of the evening. He had let his mind wander again, thoughts loss in the sea of sound.

All of that ended when a gloved hand brushed softly across the back of his neck, slowly and deliberately. Heero's entire body went stiff, like an electrical shock had passed through him, and then his head whipped around to see who had touched him. It was the exact touch as he had felt in the nightmare, down to the shape of the hand. His heart raced. As his head moved, he caught a glimpse of ice blue and silver, but when he scanned the crowd behind him, all he saw was a tall man dressed in a long black coat, silver hair hanging loose over his back, vanish into the crowd and chaos. Heero sat frozen, watching, clueless as to why this stranger had invoked such strong memories of the dream.

"Heero, you look like you've seen a ghost." Trowa said.

Heero still scanned the crowd, looking again for the man. "No, not a ghost." He said, turning away, "Just a nightmare."  
"What?" Trowa looked at him, concern on his face.

"Don't worry about it. I'm fine." But Heero heard the lie in his voice, and was fairly sure Trowa did as well. But Trowa thankfully did not push it any further.

Heero, however, could still feel the touch of the hand on his neck, and knew it had not been his imagination. He shivered, and looked down into the cup he held in his hand, wishing for something stronger.

* * *

Time was a fluid thing in the glass and steel world of Babylon, measured only in the shifting beats of the music, the flow of the crowds, and the refilling of glasses. Duo reappeared at irregular intervals, sometimes with Quatre at his side, sometimes not, each time slightly more intoxicated than the last. Trowa too was starting to show the signs of someone reaching the upper end of their tolerances. But Heero felt frighteningly sober, despite his best attempts at being otherwise, and realized it was not the lack of alcohol in his body but the lingering thoughts of the nightmare.

He was sure that he had simply hallucinated the touch on his neck, and attributed it to the lack of sleep making his mind play tricks on him. But no matter how many times he assured himself of that, no matter how many times he reminded himself that it had been simply a nightmare, nothing more than a dream his mind interpreted as unpleasant and churned up out of the depths of his subconscious by his own mind, it did not make it any less real feeling.

The next time Heero really noticed the world outside his thoughts, hours must have passed. The music was down to a dull roar, and the crowd thinning slowly, headed for the elevators in small knots of conversation, getting last drinks before leaving, or trying to locate friends in the slowly draining sea of humanity. The staff were beginning to move across the floors more openly, cleaning and picking up, herding out stragglers.

Heero looked up to see Trowa looking over at him, an uncharacteristic smile on his face. Heero did a quick mental calculation and realized Trowa had followed him drink for drink through the night, and was obviously unused to something with so high of an alcohol content. Trowa was, in no short terms, completely drunk. Heero gave an inward sigh, knowing that this would not go well.  
"Trowa, are you ok?" He asked, noticing that Trowa was looking a little green.

"Yeah," Trowa said unsteadily, "I think its time to call it a night though. Ugh." Heero nodded. "You weren't really planning on taking the train home tonight, were you, Heero?"

"Not really." Heero had given little thought to getting home or anything else for that mater. It was not like anyone was expecting him. "Come on," Heero said "Let's get you home."

* * *

Trowa lived in the area that had once been upper Manhattan, and still bore the designator left from Manhattan's days as an island, in the Central Park West dome, a massive neighborhood filled with the homes of the wealthiest families and corporate residences in the solar system. The gleaming tower of glass that housed Trowa's flat was a far cry from the shabby looking loft in a converted bank building that Heero called home in San Francisco, with subterranean parking and everything from a laundry to a sushi bar housed in the lowest twenty floors of the mixed use tower. Briefly, as the driver pulled up to the front of the building, a facade of black marble and steel, Heero wondered if he might not be happier living in such a place rather than in his quiet, secluded home in the Japanese sector of San Francisco.

Heero helped Trowa from the back seat, who despite several bottles of water during the drive home was still more drunk than sober, threw the door and atrium, to the residential elevators located in what appeared to be a decorative column that rose like a lotus from either for the two artificial lakes at either end of the atrium of the building. Trowa placed his palm on the scanner for the elevator, and in an unsteady voice informed the elevator that he had a guest with him. The door slid open with a soft ping of acceptance, and they stepped inside the sculpted brass and wood interior of the elevator car. The back of the car looked out through glass windows, which as they rose above twenty floors revealed the city through the transparent tubes that clung to the sides of the building.

As the car slowly rose, Trowa let his taller body sag against Heero, resting his head against the supporting shoulder, and breathed deeply out. Heero closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and tried not to think about how good Trowa's hand on the small of his back felt.

* * *

Trowa's flat occupied one quarter of the seventy-eighth floor, a space nearly double the size of Heero's small loft in the Japanese quarter of San Francisco. The colors were mellow, lending themselves to the yellow light from the wall lights and overhead track lighting, and Trowa looked instantly at home in this place of leather sofas and carefully placed decorations. Hard to believe, Heero thought as he helped Trowa onto the long, dark green leather couch that filled the living room side of the separator wall between kitchen and living room, that we have become so accustomed to this life. Trowa groaned and laid his head back on the arm of the couch.

"You look like you are about ready for another bottle of water." Heero said.

"Middle shelf in the right side of the fridge." Trowa said without lifting his head. Heero obeyed silently, and handed the bottle of water to Trowa as he sat down next to Trowa's legs. Trowa drank the entire bottle without a pause.

"So why did you come out with us this evening?" Trowa propped himself up a little bit, and focused bleary green eyes on Heero.  
"Just wanted to spend a night out." Heero lied.

"Oh don't shit me, Heero." Heero raised his eyebrows and looked at Trowa. "You want a night out like I want a hole in my head. What's going on?"

"The lack of company was starting to get to me," Heero tried again "And even Duo is better company than my own thoughts when I start to get cabin fervor."

"Who knows what evil lurks in the nightmares of the boy they call Heero Yui?" Trowa said in a playful voice. Heero looked shocked for a moment, and then smiled half heatedly.

"Sorry," Trowa said, reaching forward his hand to touch Heero's side "I didn't mean to make fun of it. But it does seem kind of odd," Trowa said, laying back down, "You use to be the one we all thought of as inhuman. Guess it goes to show we are all human, no matter what the world thinks of us."

Suddenly, Trowa sat up, and looked at Heero. Before Heero could say anything, Trowa flipped himself around and lay back down, with his head laying on Heero's lap and his feet propped up on the arm of the couch. Heero looked down at Trowa in stunned silence.  
"It's good to see you again like this, Heero."

* * *

Heero moved with a swiftness ingrained in him by training as powerful as instinct, his entire body moving like a fluid, and suddenly caught ridged as his feet landed on the floor over a meter from the couch. Trowa, suddenly without support, had fallen forward and almost fallen off the couch, and Heero watched as he slowly sat up, eyes clouded with alcohol induced confusion. Words were trying to form, but Trowa did not manage anything intelligible for several awkward minutes. But it was Heero who spoke first.  
"Absolutely not." He could see the shock in Trowa's expression, and the anticipation of the backlash of anger. He kept his voice perfectly level. "Trowa, be logical. Neither you nor I have done anything like that since..." He trailed off, looking at Trowa meaningfully. "You need to go to bed, and sleep off the alcohol."

Trowa nodded slowly, silently, and started to stand up slowly. He faltered, and Heero started to step forward to help him. Trowa caught himself, and looked up at Heero through his even, sandy brown bangs. The look said everything that Trowa couldn't say. Heero winced internally.

"The guest bedroom is the door off the kitchen." Trowa said slowly. "You're right; I do need to go to bed."  
Trowa left the room slowly, headed towards his bedroom. Heero stood for a moment, feeling out of place and empty inside. Maybe at least my nightmares will be of more mundane things tonight, Heero thought.

* * *

Heero had no idea how much time had passed since he had fallen asleep. Instinct woke him from dreamless darkness: there was someone in the room. His mind raced calculating his options thousands at a time, his ears tracking for the slight sound of movements and breath, but he lay still, breathing as though asleep, eyes closed. Training kicking in, letting him mimic sleep perfectly while awake, even before he was aware of the need for it. Ears searched the silence, listening still. There, behind him, off towards his feet slightly, someone was standing at the edge of the bed. There was smell, there was movement, and there was breath. Someone, male probably, just over two meters he calculated.

He heard them move, just barely, and suddenly felt the shift of weight on the bed as someone sat on its edge. Larger than him, body wider, but graceful. His mind calculated options. He could hit them with a well-placed kick, but probably nothing more.  
He lay still, waiting.

More movement, though he could not tell exactly where the person moved to, only that they were closer. A shift in weight, air currents moved about him. And then suddenly, a hand touched his bare shoulder, long thin fingers with flesh like ice, incredible strength behind the touch, like they could crush bone with a twitch.

The scream in his mind was a wordless sound of terror. He lay still, no longer even breathing. Who ever it was would know he was awake. He could not help it.  
"You're not dreaming anymore, Heero Yui."

The voice was like distant thunder, echoing deep, but soft at the limits of perception. It was not Trowa's voice, nor Trowa's hand. No, it was the voice, like the touch, from his nightmare, from the club that night.

"This is real."

Blind panic struck, and he thrashed wildly, hoping to hit something. His fists and feet caught only empty air and sheet. Blindly he sat up, his instincts telling him already what he had to verify with his eyes. He turned on the light. Nothing, no one. But he could smell whoever it had been in the air still. It had not been a dream, not this time.

The only thing that kept him from screaming was remembering where he was.

* * *

Why had he thought that being home would make him feel any better? Heero looked around his home and felt alien and out of place, lost in a sea of the familiar that seemed suddenly to have no meaning. His loft was Spartan, simplistic and functional in its layout and decoration. Everything had its place, and every place its function, but nothing felt as it should.

He sat down on the futon couch in the small living room area, staring at the blank wall screen opposite, but making no move to turn it on. Nothing made any sense any more. What was happening to him? Was he going insane, finally loosing what mental cohesiveness he had? He ran his hand through his bangs, brushing them back, and then held his head in his hands. Dreams that felt so real they fooled his instincts, but dreams that could not be dreams unless his brain was producing an entire slew of sensory hallucinations.  
He had to be hallucinating, he realized, nothing else could explain it. The nightmares had been the first symptom of whatever was wrong, the hallucinations now, these had to be the second. If something was biologically wrong, which all such dysfunction had to have their roots in, it was repairable. Even the hallucinations of the Zero system had their roots in the biofeedback alterations made in brain waves by the system. This too, no matter what it was, it was repairable.

He stood and wandered into the small gym room in the back corner of the loft, where he kept a small assortment of equipment and weights, as well as the prototype bio-analysis system that filled a corner of the room. It was a monstrosity of hoses and tubes, painted dull beige, with an LCD display panel with every possible analysis and test as an option. It included a low-grade MRI system, X-ray bays, and a myriad of blood tests, and about all the thing could not do was surgery.

He stepped into the small pod like bay of the system and ordered a full batter of tests for brain problems and neurotransmitter levels. The shield doors slid shut, and he was illuminated in turquoise lit dimness. Dull humming began, and he followed the instructions of the soft female voice that spoke somewhere behind his head as each procedure ran.

But something in the back of his mind already knew what the results would be.

* * *

Four hours later sore, hungry, and exhausted, Heero stepped out of the machine, and looked around. The light seemed too bright, and the absence of the hum was noticeable. He felt lightheaded, and worse than he had when he arrived home. The machine was displaying an ETA for the test results of just fewer than twelve hours, and Heero knew it would probably take longer than that because it would relay the data to a specialist AI who would examine it as well.

Heero decided that he needed food, and found that somehow he had allowed his supply of food in the house to run out to nearly nothing. He walked over to the phone and hit the third button on the speed dial. The restaurant clerk answered with a cheerful hello, asked if it would be his usual, charged to his account, and Heero agreed, and hung up. On its way was a four course Thai meal from a place across town, fresh prepared by the family that ran the restaurant. He knew the exact amount of time it would take the food to arrive, and he had exactly time for a shower.

He showered more slowly than usual, his mind wandering when it shouldn't be. He thought back to the night before, wondering if it had been a mistake to turn down Trowa the way he had. Wondering too if somehow what he had experienced could somehow not be a hallucination. But that was illogical; it was improbable to the point of being impossible. It was much more likely, he knew that he himself was suffering some sort of brain dysfunction.

As he cut off the water and stepped out, he caught his own reflection in the mirror. Do the insane wonder if they are insane, he asked himself, looking at the dark circles under his eyes and the grim expression on his face. He brushed the thought away like a large fly, but just like it, it returned, buzzing in his brain loudly as he shaved and brushed out his hair. Was it possible to be insane and realize it? Worse, was he not insane, but was this all real? That was insane.

He was halfway through dressing when the food arrived, the door buzzer squawking in its off key bray, announcing the presence of the delivery down stairs. He pulled on the rest of his clothing as he checked the security monitor to verify that it was the youngest son of the family that owned the restaurant, and then pressed the clearance button that opened the door. He waited, counting seconds in his head, reaching an even minute as the knock came on the door. He opened it, took the two bags of food from the boy, handed him a large tip in cash, and thumbed the small credit reader that verified his identity and processed the charge for the food on his account, and then pushed the door shut after wishing the boy a good day.

Dinner at least, he thought as the smell of the half duck pushed its way to his nose through the other smells and made his stomach protest its neglect lately, would not be a loss.

* * *

After dinner was eaten, and leftovers put away, Heero retired to the balcony that looked over the rooftop garden that the building association cultivated in the sunken ventilation shaft that extended four floors into the ten story building. Looking out on to the greenery, the balcony attached to his bedroom and living room. He used it as a meditative place, a place he spent hours in reflection and meditation.

Now, he sought the quiet of his mind, and the peace of the silence of thoughts, but found he could not still the disquiet tumbling of his worries. He breathed slowly, resorting to focusing on the breath, but always found his thoughts straying. Anxiety convulsed in his brain, and compounded its self on his lack of ability to settle his mind. Was he that out of control, that far gone?  
Time passed, and he forced himself to remain sitting, to struggle for quiet in his mind. At last, as twilight was starting to show its self, he felt the peaceful calm begin to settle over him. Time passed, each moment it's own moment, flowing from one to the next like a stream. Was he mad? It did not matter, for he was not just himself, but all things were the same. All being was being, all things were all things, endlessly interconnected into oneness. The universe was. Peace settled on him.

(Mother is calling you. Come.)

The world broke like a shattering stained glass window. Heero found himself curled up on the wood of the balcony in a fetal ball, shivering in the darkness. His entire body was twitching, as if an electric shock had been passed through it. His heart was pounding, and he sucked down air in ragged gasps.

The voice. It had been in his head, there as clear as the sound of his own thoughts. And it was that same voice from the dreams, and from the night before. He could find no escape from it, it seemed. He sat up slowly, his body shaking from the adrenaline in his blood stream. Something was wrong, something was very wrong with him. He crawled to the door and pulled himself up onto his feet. What was happening, he wondered, what is doing this to me?

His hands were shaking, fluttering like his heart was. Slowly he made his way towards his gym, hoping that the results were done. They were. The screen blinked softly in the dim light, the print out button blinking slowly. Shakily he pressed it, though he already knew what it was going to say. It printed, and the screen filled with text, reports of his health.  
No abnormalities.

No changes in blood chemistry, no imbalances in neurotransmitters, no unusual items on his x-rays and MRI results, nothing. He was completely and perfectly healthy. What ever was happening to him was not physical in any way.  
His first thought was suddenly that he wanted very badly to clean his guns.

* * *

How long could he go without sleep, he wondered. Once, he had been trained to go without sleep for long periods of time and remain functional. Now, he had no idea. Two days, three days? Maybe four or five before he went completely over the edge from depravation of REM sleep. All he knew was that he would have to find out.

* * *

Three days later, the battle was over. Heero knew he would not last much longer without giving in to sleep. His body was rebelling, his brain was shutting down, and soon he would find out the next phase in whatever was happening to him when sleep came to claim him.

Groggily he looked at the clock next to the wall screen, realizing he had nearly made it for three days solid without sleep. His eyes drooped, and focus was hard to hold. He had read thirty pages of the book on his lap without seeing a word on the pages, simply turning them regularly as his eyes moved emptily over them. He laid his head back on the cushion of the futon, and felt sleep creeping up onto him.

Soon.

His body was giving in. He could not fight it any longer, sleep was impossible to fight off. He lay down on the futon, not even bothering to fold it out. At least, he thought as darkness swallowed him, I'll be comfortable.  
Sleep settled in and enfolded him in void.

* * *

"So you finally gave in, Heero Yui."

Heero found himself standing in shapeless darkness, standing on a surface as black as the rest of what ever surrounded him. He thought at first he was blind, but found that he could see himself, his arms and legs and body and feet looked as though illuminated in bright light. The voice was off to his left, behind him, the speaker out of sight. He tried to move, and found his body would not obey. He could do nothing but stand and wait.

Suddenly a gloved hand touched Heero's neck and shoulder, cold radiating through the black leather. Heero tried to jerk away from it, but while his mind ordered the movement, his body remained unmoving. The hand came to rest on his shoulder.  
"Don't exhaust your mind trying to move. This is only a projection of yourself, made by your mind. And I have control of it."  
Heero struggled, or tried to, a moment longer and then stopped. It was doing him no good, whatever the reason really was.  
"Who - Who are you?" He managed, finding words though he was sure his mouth did not move.

"Ah, at last, he speaks." The voice was laughing softly. The hand let go of his shoulder, falling away. Movement in the corner of his eyes, and then a figure stepped out of the darkness in front of him. Ice blue eyes, crystal clear and cold, looked out of a pale, aristocratic European face with a hawkish nose and lips so pale they seemed to meld into the rest of the fine featured but clearly male face. White hair spilled loose over broad shoulders, its fine strands flowing to nearly past hip length, their color made even more shocking by the black long coat the man wore which trailed to the dark floor. Heero's eyes stopped for a moment on the floor: the man's feet were bare.

The man made a fluid, low bow.

"My name was once Sephiroth." The blue eyes closed slowly, and a look of serenity passed across it like a cloud. "Names mean very little to Mother, though."

* * *

"Ah, but I suppose you don't understand." The voice was smooth, easy to listen to. Heero found himself nearly hypnotized by it.   
"No, you wouldn't, not yet at least. You know, I suppose from watching you that all things are simply elements of one greater being?"

"All being is consciousness." Heero said by rote. He knew this, had felt it many times. All things were linked, when one felt pain, all suffered.

"Yes, you do understand." The eyes narrowed.

He's reading my thoughts, Heero realized, and on the heels of that, of course he is, this is your dream and he is part of your mind.

"Yes, I am reading your thoughts, and no, this is not a dream, at least not in your understanding of one." Sephiroth stepped forward, closer to Heero. The eyes were not pure blue, Heero saw, flecks of silver floated in the ice blue, moving slowly. Heero wanted to look away, but could not. Sephiroth laughed, a sound like distant thunder. "All things are part of the Life Stream, the stream of souls that flow through the Earth and give her life. And in return, she gives us life. Earth is Mother." The eyes narrowed to slits, and Heero found himself transfixed by them.

"Mother, she picked me as her solder, as her guardian. And I did what I had to do, thought not quite as I meant to, not as well as I wanted to." The lips pulled back, showing sharp, white teeth, perfect and even. "But Mother is safe now, and that is all that mattered, I thought. But imagine," A single leather clad finger touched his nose, "imagine my surprise when I transcended, and touched the face of Mother, and found not one Mother, but thousands, millions of Her. All facets of the same existence, but all one. And each one," gloved hands reached up and held Heero's head between them, "with Her perfect solder."

"Many thousands of worlds, I found lifeless and dead, their solders having failed them. Other thousands, I found myself, or someone so like myself as to be the same. But here," the hands moved and rested on his shoulders, "I found you. And you seem to have made all the difference."

The serenity passed across the smooth face again. "I sought out others like me, and I found only me. But now, I found you. You, you who are Mother's solder here in this world that is so different from mine. Fascinating."  
"You still do not understand." Sephiroth stepped even closer to Heero, bare feet now toe to toe with Heero. The gloved hand moved from his shoulder, and the backs of the fingers brushed softly across Heero's cheek. Ice blue eyes looked at him, looked through his soul it felt like, their expression unreadable.

"The darkness, this place, this existence, is so lonely. You," the hand touched his ear, fingers trailing down his neck, "You are like me, and can be even more like me - become transcendent, and touch Mother's face." The hand moved again, resting on the back of his neck, as cold as if liquid helium flowed through the flesh under the leather. "We are Gods waiting to become, Heero Yui, Mother's solders. And you, you have fascinated me, enchanted me..." Was that longing or hunger or somehow both in those eyes, Heero wondered. "Come with me, Heero, and we can be Gods together, and guard Mother together."

Suddenly the hand on the back of Heero's neck pulled him forwards, and the other gloved hand snaked around his body and pulled him towards Sephiroth. A tongue like liquid ice parted his lips, and he found himself locked in the kiss. His first urge was to struggle, but he knew he could not. Lips and skin preternaturally cold, saliva like super cooled liquid helium, filling him with a cold Heero feared would freeze him to his core. And suddenly, something inside of him gave in, and the cold flooded through him, burning through his mind.

White light burned out all other sensation.

(Come with me, Heero Yui, and we will be Gods together.)

(The darkness is so lonely.)

(Come with me, Heero Yui.)

(Come with me.)  
And the universe, all universes, dissolved into blackness.

* * *

Heero woke to find himself where he had fallen asleep, curled on his side on the futon. His body felt chilled to the bone, but every nerve ending tingled and burned. He hurt all over, sore as though he had run a marathon, and worse he realized that he was painfully aroused. He sat up slowly and looked around, looking at the LCD clock by the wall screen and realized he had slept nearly fifteen hours. What a dream, he thought to himself.

But what did it matter, he thought, standing slowly, stretching out the stiffness, he felt better than he had in weeks. For the first time since the dreams started, he felt like himself. What happened to me, he wondered, was it really just a dream? But surely it had to be.

Heero found himself rummaging through the fridge for the leftovers from his last meal. But really, he was thinking, his brain wandering as his hands moved reflexively. It had just been a dream; he knew that, nothing more. There was no Sephiroth, no place of complete darkness, nothing like that existed, nor could exist. It was simply his mind working something out on its own in the form of dreams and hallucinations. And whatever it was, it seemed to at last be over.

The door buzzer yowled and Heero thumped his head on the edge of the refrigerator he stood up so fast in surprise. Who on earth, he wondered, and made his way towards the door. He checked the video security monitor, and buzzed the intercom asking the person to identify themselves. A delivery, unexpected, but nothing worth his usual paranoia.

He counted seconds after the door opened and closed, waiting. The delivery boy was slower than any of his usual delivery services, and he reached a full two minutes before the knock on his door. He opened it, and the boy carefully handed him a large, rectangular box wrapped in silver foil and black ribbon. He inquired as to payment, the boy said everything was already paid for, and vanished, pulling the door shut with him, leaving Heero to puzzle over the box.

He carried it to the counter in the kitchen, and set it down carefully. There were no markings on the outside of the box, only the ribbon and foil. With a shrug, Heero pulled on the ribbon, finding that it pulled free smoothly, and opened the foil. It pulled back to reveal a transparent box, inside of which was a slender black vase, filled to the brim with the lush green foliage and small white blossoms of day lilies. Attached to the vase was a small white envelope. The front panel of the box opened at a seam with a slight push, and Heero reached in and pulled it out, opening it carefully. The message inside was written in a smooth if spidery hand, kanji closely spaced, and its message was elegant if simple.

"When the moon is full, I will be waiting for you in the still waters. Without you, I cannot exist."

The messaged was followed by a set of GPS coordinates, and then a signature seal in silver ink. Heero knew, without looking, whose name it said. Sephiroth.

And somehow he had known, without knowing, that it had been much more than a dream.

* * *

The coordinates turned out to be in a secluded wilderness preserve in the mountains of the Hokkaido region of Japan. The place was deep into the mountains, yet accessible by the myriad of trails in the area. Why there, he wondered, there seemed to be nothing of any significance for miles surrounding the area. And why the full moon, less than two weeks away, for that matter. But did any of this make any sense? Did sense even matter at this point? Somehow, it really didn't.

Two days passed without another dream, and Heero found himself spending hours simply staring at the lilies. This was real, they said, over and over again, all of this was more than bad dreams and hallucinations. No matter the doubts, no matter the questions, he knew what he was supposed to do.

Heero prepared for the trip, still waiting for a sign of some sort, some signal that he was doing what he should. But none came. He thought constantly of the dream, his mind filled with nothing but its every detail. Especially thoughts of Sephiroth. Days and nights became meaningless after a while, and he found himself sleeping only when tired, paying little regard to schedule or time. Nothing felt real except the memories of the dreams any more.

But he did what he needed to do. He had a deadline, the exact full moon, and a place he had to be then. The flight was arranged, but he made no return plans; the equipment was purchased and packed, backpack, tent, sleeping bag, and all the odds and ends needed; he arranged travel to the trail head. He tried to anticipate what he would find there, but he had no real idea what to expect. So he packed extras of many things he would probably not need. Anxiety filled his being like a poison, and the days slipped through his fingers like the fine sand of the rooftop Zen garden outside his bedroom window.

His nights became sleepless as his departure drew closer, and soon even the short naps that he had found some rest in were gone. When he would lay down, his mind roved constantly, thoughts of Sephiroth and what ever lay waiting in the Japanese forests. He found himself thinking of things he had not thought of since the war, since his time with Duo. But now, now things were stronger, more compelling: this was not the thoughtless lust of the body, Sephiroth had tempted him, and he had fallen like Eve to the fruit of the tree of knowledge. What curse would be his for this?

He felt as though he was under some spell, some enchantment, compelled to do what he was doing. He claimed to be a god, to be somehow chosen by the earth. He promised the same for Heero. It all seemed madness, delusion, to the rational part of his mind. And yet it made no difference to him, he wanted to do this: he wanted Sephiroth.

* * *

The transpacific flight from LAX to Tokyo was a fourteen hour living hell for Heero. He hated flying, even low atmospheric flights like this, because he felt so vulnerable in the thin shell of metal that encased the pressurized cabin. It was a leftover from the war, as best he could tell, some remnant of fear transmuted by everyday life. Worse, he could not sleep, as he usually would, to pass the time in oblivion. So he sat, staring out the window next to the first class seat onto the expanse of endless blue water below him. All he could think was that his time was ticking down.

He had checked his luggage except for his GPS and a portfolio of trail maps of the area he was headed to. The maps were spread out on the work surface tray that folded out of the seat arm rest, but he found himself only looking blankly at them. Marked on the map in pale blue was his destination, a small chain of mountain lakes. He had planned his route and time tables in red pen on the maps, marking likely camp sites along the route. A full day's hike would put him where he needed to be, but with two days from the time he reached the trail head till the night of the full moon, he did not plan to push himself hard.

His mind wandered as the blue water passed thirty thousand feet below him, doted with clouds and ships and the white crests of waves. Here he was, traveling thousands of miles on the urging of a dream and a vase of flowers. What if, he wondered, it was some elaborate form of madness? Worse, what if it was some sick, cruel joke? But no one could have known about the dreams - he had not even reported them in the medical exams - so how could it be someone else playing a joke. He sighed. He would know soon enough if it was real or not. Something would be waiting for him in those woods, answers of some sort to these questions in his head. Either he would find nothing, and know he was simply insane and delusional, or else he would find - what, he wondered? He had no way to know.

He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. Confusion so easily transmuted its self into rage in his mind. It was useless, impotent rage, pointless and self destructive, but it still seethed inside of him. He wanted order, logic, all of the things he was use to in his life. He had been trained as a solder, taught to follow orders as though they were instinct, and his life had been logic and order. And now this. He was off chasing words from a nightmare, off to find the mysterious being that called itself Sephiroth, which lured him with promises of god-hood and flattering words. But it was more than that, Heero realized. Something about Sephiroth had struck a powerful resonance in him. Something deep in his nature said that this was real, that this was right, and that he had to do this. Something was calling him. But all he could think about was putting his fist through the seat in front of him.

* * *

The map, it turned out, was wrong. The trails, which were clearly marked in small dotted red lines, were barely existent on the steep, forested slopes of the mountains. After four miles of trying to follow the badly marked trails, Heero gave up and began following his GPS.

It was bitterly chill, though not cold, and the rain, which had started less than thirty minutes after he started hiking, fell in fat, heavy drops that struck with painful, stinging force. Wind pulled through the rain soaked Japanese cedars, shaking water off of branches and making an unearthly sound. Soaked to the bone, despite the rain gear, the chill settled in to Heero's bones. Any other person would probably have been miserable and given up. Heero simply focused on his GPS and the ground under his feet, and kept walking.

The bed of wet pine needles that covered the forest floor was treacherously slick, and he found himself slipping more often than not and four or five times he fell totally. Mud covered his rain gear from the knees down, and dirt and grime covered his hands and face.

After seven hours walking, with late afternoon creeping up on him, and less mileage covered than he had hoped for, Heero made the chose to push on through the night. And while dangerous, and probably a bit fool hardy to boot, it was better than wasting eight hours trying to sleep when he could be drawing closer to his goal. So he kept walking, and darkness closed in around him like a shroud. He took the occasional break to eat, though it was usually not very much, and never a full meal. Nothing seemed to really matter, nothing except the slowly counting coordinates on the GPS and the ever lightening sky as dawn of the last day crept in. And still it rained.

Dawn broke slowly, a slow lightening of the overcast sky visible in bits and chunks through the trees overhead. He had covered nearly the entire distance he needed, with only two miles left to go as it became full daylight. He was starting up what seemed to be the side of a dead volcanic cone, the trees slowly becoming thinner as the steep slope rose in front of him across the small valley he was crossing. Grand as it was, it was still raining, though it had slowed, and he had the ridge to climb and descend still. With a sigh, he went back to focusing on his footing, following the GPS.

He crested the ridge a little under an hour later, almost exhausted from the climb up the slope. There were only a handful of trees on the ridge, and his view of the crater below was breath taking. A cluster of mirror smooth lakes clustered in the bowl of the crater, seven in total, linked by small channels of water and rimmed by cobble beaches. Two great waterfalls spilled down the far side of the crater wall into the lakes, billows of water forming fog that meshed with the cold gray sky overhead.

He glanced down at the GPS and looked down into the crater below. His goal seemed to be the beach of the closest lake. At least, he though with an ironic bent in his mind as he wiped the rain out of his eyes, feeling the mud smear across his skin, it's all down hill from here.

* * *

He had made camp on the beach and slept for most of the day, lulled by the sound of the heavy rain drops striking the fabric of the tent. As an early dusk settled in, he woke up from the dreamless sleep, his body sore and his muscles cramped. He put back on his boots and rain gear, happy to be vaguely dry finally in the fresh clothes he had put on before falling to sleep, and walked down to the lake's edge. It was still slowly raining, though it was not nearly the downpour it had been earlier. The sky was overcast, slowly darkening as the sun set, hidden behind the rolling clouds above.

Yet as true darkness settled in once the sun had set, the clouds began to thin, and the rain stopped. A spray of stars began to appear overhead through the holes in the clouds. Heero put away the rain gear, and found a relatively dry rock to sit on and watch the sky clear, and the moon slowly climbed over the edge of the ridge to the east, so bright it cast shadows.

Hours passed, and the moon climbed nearly to the zenith of the night sky, its silver light transforming the still waters of the lake into a glowing mirror that reflected it and the stars behind it, all but the brightest nearly washed out by the glow. Still, Heero sat, waiting for some sign. He wondered what would happen, and wondered too what he expected to happen. Doubt crawled in his mind like a worm. What would he do if nothing happened? What would he do if something really did happen? So many questions rattled inside his head that he wished he could bang his head against the stone to make them stop.

Heero was so wrapped up in his thoughts that it took him several moments to notice the disturbance on the surface of the lake. Small, iridescent bubbles were rising about four meters off the shore, breaking on the surface and making rings of moonlight and shadow. He watched them, puzzled, wondering what was causing them when there had been none before. Perhaps a fish, or a turtle, some creature stirring in the depths, he supposed.

Then something perplexing happened, something Heero could not explain, nor even guess at. Another small cluster of bubbles rose to the surface, each one a glowing blue sphere, and burst, sending concentric rings of blue light across the surface. Heero was on his feet now, looking out into the water, jaw hanging a bit slack. Again, yet more blue bubbles rose, burst, and blue light refracted across the surface. And suddenly, there was a surge of bubbles, both blue and silver; rolling to the surface as though the spot on the water had suddenly come to a boil. The surface of the water became a maze of rings of color. Then it was silent, the water still again.

The water surged upwards, a roll of fluid suddenly forced up by motion, and something broke the surface. Silver hair, blue eyes, and the aristocratic face... Heero felt as though he were going to faint. Sephiroth's head rose above the water, and gasped, a deep painful sound of empty lungs drawing in air. Heero quickly took off his boots and socks, striped off his pants and started to wade out into the water, splashing up sheets of cold, icy water around him. Sephiroth was rising further out of the water, his body uncurling it seemed, standing and stepping forward unsteadily.

Heero was almost waste deep now, oblivious to the icy cold water, and reached out towards Sephiroth, who seemed unresponsive to anything. Suddenly, the blue eyes focused on Heero, and hands reached out of the water towards Heero in reflex response. Heero grabbed for the hands, pale and long fingered, and at last wrapped his around them, only to be met by shocking, breath tearing cold, far colder than the water he stood in. Slowly, carefully, he started helping Sephiroth to shore.  
Sephiroth's steps were unsteady, unbalanced, as they slowly walked towards the shore. The cold air settled in against Heero's wet skin, but it was nothing against the preternatural cold that radiated from the pale, tall form he supported. Heero could not help but look at Sephiroth as they stepped on to shore. He was easily a good foot taller if not more than Heero, a lithe body that was powerfully built but fine boned, with broad shoulders and chest, and an almost feminine waste. And below that - Heero tried not to look but found himself looking despite himself. If the cold was bothering Sephiroth, it did not show in the least. Heero shivered, but not from cold.

Slowly, he brought Sephiroth to the tent, and sat him down just inside of it. Wet silver hair blanked his broad back, and hung limply across a blank face. Heero did his best to pull the blankets up around those broad shoulders, but it did not seem to do anything to banish the cold. Suddenly Sephiroth moved, turning to look at Heero. Heero found himself transfixed by ice blue eyes with slowly dancing silver flecks.

"I -" Sephiroth's voice was harsh, raspy, as though his throat was clogged, "I could not exist here without you, Heero. I came for you, and you came for me." Sephiroth's body seemed to sag, the strength suddenly gone out of him. He bent outside the tent, head nearly between his feet, silver hair falling loose, and vomited water. Heero watched silently, and held the blankets in place, wondering what was coming next.


	2. Chapter 2

It was still three or four hours until dawn when at last Heero joined Sephiroth under the pile of blankets and sleeping bags. Heero had tried, with no success, to get answers out of Sephiroth, but the silver haired man had said little more than a word or two in response to his questions. But Heero had observed much about this strange being who had stepped out of his dreams into reality. Sephiroth only seemed to breathe when he remembered to do it, and it was obvious, lying next to the pale, still form, that the cold of his flesh was not going to dissipate. Sephiroth had refused food and water, wanting only to lay in the darkness of the tent under several layers of blankets. Heero had at last given up, and after shedding the outer layers of his clothing, lay next to Sephiroth, trying to find some respite from the chill wind outside by curling up on his side. Sephiroth stirred only slightly, moving in some imperceptible way, but did not acknowledge him for several minutes.  
An ice cold hand touched Heero's bare shoulder gently, and Heero tried not to stiffen with shock. He could feel Sephiroth, less than a foot away from his back, move slightly closer. Panic surged in Heero, but he fought it down. Sephiroth settled again, and there was silence for painful seconds.  
"I am - I am sorry, Heero." Sephiroth said softly, voice still unsteady. "I am not used to being this - this way. It is very - very different from existing -" Sephiroth paused as though looking for a word "- existing as I do." The hand traced fingertips down Heero's arm slowly. "It is taking me time to get use to this form again. I have not -" the pause again "-not been this in a long time. How long, I do not know."  
Heero rolled over, and faced Sephiroth. The blue eyes were closed tightly, the elegant face drawn in concentration. Sephiroth was not breathing, nor did any muscle in his body move. Heero idly wondered if there was blood in his body, or simply empty veins beneath the skin, as no pulse was visible on the smooth skin of the throat.  
"I know -" Sephiroth swallowed hard and his focus seemed to deepen. "I know you have questions, so many questions. I can feel them radiating from you like -" the pause again, and a look of frustration. "No, there is no word for that here." He said, almost to himself. "I will answer as I can, though this is trying for me. But it will get better," Sephiroth opened his eyes, almost glowing blue in the dim light, "it will get better with time."

* * *

Heero lay and listened as Sephiroth did his best to explain himself and his purpose. He was still as powerful in this physical form as in his ether-self, his term for the form Heero had perceived in his dreams, but like a large object squeezed into a small container, it was uncomfortable and difficult to get use to. He wanted to help Heero claim what was his, the transcendence and closeness to the entity he referred to as Mother, something which Heero gathered approximated some sort of planetary consciousness. No, there were no others like him that he had found, Sephiroth told him sadly. No gods, no other immortals, just him. And it was this loneliness that had driven him to seek others such as himself. And why, why had he crossed over into the physical, Heero wondered but did not ask.  
"Because," Sephiroth said, reading his thoughts, "I wanted to be with you here before bringing you over."  
Sephiroth touched Heero's face with the tips of his delicate, pointed fingers, a sad smile on his face. Heero could not help himself, and let himself be pulled forward by the subtle but powerful touch towards Sephiroth. Sephiroth's lips touched Heero's like a feather being brushed across them, icy cold but erotic, and Heero found himself simultaneously fighting the urge to pull away and to let himself surrender to this powerful touch that intoxicated him. Revulsion welled up in his mind, old pain and deeply cut mental scars suddenly flared white hot in his brain, and Heero yanked himself away sharply, suddenly shaking all over.  
Sephiroth only looked at him calmly, no emotion other than a slight question on his face. Heero opened his mouth to try to explain, but Sephiroth motioned for him to be silent. He extended two pale fingers, and lightly touched Heero on the center of the forehead. Heero suddenly felt like an electrical current move through his body, and his hands fought to grab Sephiroth's wrist and pull away the burning cold touch of the fingers, but he found he could not move them.  
And then, he began to remember things, and feel things, which he had wanted desperately and completely to forget.

* * *

Thoughts ripped through his head, a sudden flood of memories loosed as what felt like every block and barrier in his mind dissolved, and Heero found himself awash in thoughts he could not control or direct. Panic flooded through him, and he felt, distantly, his had spasmodically close on an icy wrist. The thoughts solidified suddenly, crystallizing into memories.  
His earliest memories were of the doctors and his training. It had been a cold, clinical existence, but he had known nothing else but it for the first fifteen years of his life. He had seen only the doctors, and a handful of assistants, and no one else until he had begun training with the Gundam. But, except for his texts, he had never even seen a woman. He had been taught human anatomy and biological function along with the basics of all other sciences from as early as he could remember. There had been no moral stigmas, nor had any other commentary been provided on the sections dedicated to human reproductive function. Devoid of any external influences, his mind had filed it away with the rest of human biology as reference.  
Later, he had become more aware of such things when the more advanced stages of his training had begun. He had been taught biofeedback techniques for stabilizing his endocrine system, especially hormones, as the first phases of puberty began manifesting themselves. Not coincidentally, the first serious stages in his pain tolerance training had begun at the same time. His mind linked those memories strongly with his first awareness of sexuality, not because the training was in any way sexual, but because it had been his first real awareness of his body as more than an extension of his mind. The sessions had been terrifying and torturous, hour after hour strapped to one of the restraint tables with the electrodes sending stronger and stronger electrical shocks through various parts of his body. Small, circular scars that dotted his skin were the only visible remnant of the experience, but it had forever altered his mind and nervous system.  
He had not realized how seriously altered he was until much later.

* * *

Operation Meteor had brought changes in his life he could not have anticipated. The most shocking of which had been the introduction into his life of the other Gundam pilots, each random a factor that was more difficult to predict and account for than any other he had ever encountered. Worst of the four had been Duo, the self styled God of Death whose self preservation instinct could metamorphosis into selfless kamikaze engagement faster than the blink of an eye. Something about the braided pilot fascinated Heero in a way he could not have described then, but was in retrospect the first spasms of lustful infatuation. It had only been much later on during the operation, when the five had fled earth back to the colonies, that Duo had outright seduced Heero.  
The first night had been a period of shocking discovery for Heero, an event that was scarred into his mind as strongly as the basics of his training had been. Duo had explained many things to him, filling in many of the gaps left in his understanding, all the while with a tone of unease when mentioning their activities. Heero had let himself be led that night, almost to the point of total surrender of himself to Duo. It had been easy, almost too easy to do, just to let go and be guided. He recognized it as a reaction from his training, the impulse to follow orders without question, but the ease at which he let go of control frightened him later. But it had not mattered to him then, not in the least.  
He had made a second discovery about himself that night as well, one whose ramifications he would not understand until long after the operation was over, and the year of peace before the Eve Wars came. Pain and pleasure were interchangeable signals to his nervous system, both registering to his brain as the same, something half way between the two. The same training that rendered the pain of broken limbs into the dull registering signal of biological distress in his mind had somehow made normal sexual pleasure impossible for him.  
His physical response was perfectly normal, but the sensations registered wrongly in his mind as the mixed sensation his brain registered as both pleasure and pain. Pain he had felt plenty of before, and until then had little reason to understand the other half of the sensation, but he had found himself awash suddenly in it. He had understood the impulses of his instinct driven body, but what he had not expected was the intensity of the experience, and that had been what hooked him.

* * *

The memories of his time with Duo raced by in a blur, as through the fast forward button had been pushed in his mind. Duo had quickly discovered that Heero could take as much, if not more, of the sadistic acts that seemed to fill his head as Duo could think up. At first, Duo had been hesitant, but once the two had settled into their lives in the brief year of peace, Duo had nightly pushed the limits, seeing how far and how much Heero could take. He had been addicted to the sensation, to the feelings, and to the strange sensations of pleasure. But something that happened shortly after the Eve Wars changed all of that.  
Heero had never had any sort of exposure to religion during his training, nor had he ever really been exposed to popular social norms except for those of the handful of individuals he had been exposed to since the beginning of the first operation. Thus he had no real understanding of what he was in for the day Relena had shown up at his door in San Francisco with a look of pure rage on her face.  
Tears brimmed in her eyes, and sadness was on her face, but the voice that spoke was one schooled in blind conviction. He was use to hearing such conviction from her when she spoke in public about the new world government, and all that it entailed, but her topic was quite different as she sat on his couch, holding his hand, and looking as though she wanted to gouge his eyes out.  
She spoke for a time about morals, about what was right and wrong, about the natural order of things as they were intended to be, all as a sort of drawn out preamble to her point. She had learned from someone, though she did not say who, about Duo and himself, and wanted to discuss this with him. She talked for nearly an hour without a pause: she wondered if it was the horror of how he was raised, if the doctors had abused him, or worse, taught him such things were normal; and saying over and over again that it was unnatural and unclean what he was doing, that he had to stop it. And after that hour was over, he simply nodded, and told her to leave. She had left, threatening him with damnation and hell all the way out the door.  
After she was gone, he had sat in the darkness, alone, for two days, trying to make sense of himself. He supposed now, the mental breakdown had been inevitable given his background and mental condition. But it had served a purpose, and a powerful one: it had broken his addiction to Duo. But as a result, he now found himself, his past, and anything sexual, homosexual or otherwise, totally and completely revolting.  
Distantly, he felt the presence of Sephiroth in his mind, a cold spot in the heat of churning memories. Sadness radiated from the cold, a deep sympathetic hurt that resonated like struck crystal. The memories that had overwhelmed him faded back, and he found himself aware again of the tent and the naked, icy body curled next to him under the blankets.  
Cold fingers touched his cheek softly, and the pale, thin lips brushed his own, barely touching. Heero fought his urge to pull away for all of a few seconds, but lost and whimpered softly as he jerked back.  
"I am sorry." The deep voice said in a whisper. "Now that I see, I understand. I do not want to hurt you, but I do love you." Sephiroth moved closer, and laid a hand on Heero's hip. "Besides," Sephiroth whispered in his ear, "This is not the place for such things. Mother is watching us."

* * *

Heero woke the next morning to cold sheets and an empty tent. Panic momentarily filled him, and he wondered again briefly if he had indeed gone insane. It couldn't have been a dream, he reassured himself as he dressed, nor could it have been a complicated hallucination. But he was not completely reassured until he unzipped the tent door and found Sephiroth standing at the lakeshore, fully dressed in nearly the identical way he had been in the dreams, his silver hair moving slightly in the breeze from off the lake.  
"Where did you-" Heero started to say.  
Sephiroth turned with a flourish of black leather, blue eyes flashing. Heero noticed his left hand go instinctively towards the right hip, as though reaching for a weapon that was not there. Seeing Heero, Sephiroth relaxed visibly.  
"You startled me, Heero." A dashing smile flashed across his face, hiding whatever had been there before.  
"Where did you get the clothes?" Heero tried again.  
"Ah, yes." A sly, careful smile and then solemn seriousness: "Mother provides for her children, if only we know how to ask correctly," he said mysteriously. With six long strides, heavily booted feet crunching in the cobbles, Sephiroth crossed the beach to Heero, and laid black gloved hands on his shoulders. "For now, we will go back to your home across the sea and rest and collect ourselves." Sephiroth looked up at the blue sky, and then back down at Heero and Heero felt sharply the height difference between them.  
"It's a two day hike out of here," Heero began, "and it will probably take another day to get a flight..." Sephiroth was looking at him with a bemused expression, and then suddenly burst into laughter.  
"Have you yet to hear a word I said, Heero?" Sephiroth turned and looked at their camp, then waved a hand, and every sign of their presence vanished in a blink. "My form may be physical, but do not underestimate my powers, Heero." There was an almost cruel slant to his eye for a moment, but laughter still filled the rest of his face. "Come." He extended a gloved hand towards Heero, which Heero took without question or doubt.  
"Mother provides for us." Sephiroth said in almost a whisper. And then he stepped...  
Thousands of kilometers passed in an instant blurred blink, and Heero found himself standing on the street corner a block from his building, Sephiroth beside him, smiling down at him. The walked the block in silence, but at the door to the building Sephiroth paused, and looked up and down the street, then at Heero. The soft leather of the glove caressed Heero's face, and ran gently through the fringes of his hair.  
"Yes, Mother provides for us."

* * *

Sephiroth stood on the bedroom balcony, looking out over the Zen garden below. He had shed the leather coat almost immediately after they had entered the apartment, and now stood dressed in a lose, white linen shirt and black pants, his bare feet pressed against the dark wood of the balcony in a clash of light and dark. One hand gripped the railing as he leaned out into the half darkness of the city night, while the other held a glass of some wine so dark red it might well have been black.  
The bottle of wine had appeared along with the dinner he had summoned up for them both, and they had eaten in silence across the small dinning room table that Heero generally disregarded except as a place to keep his mail. Heero had had a single glass, and found it too sweetly bitter for his liking. Sephiroth drank it liberally, but showed no effects of the alcohol. Yet as Heero stood watching Sephiroth looking over the garden, he could not help but feel that somehow this mysterious man had let drop many of his defenses as the night grew older.  
"You and I are so different, Heero." Sephiroth said without turning. "Yet in the most basic ways, we are the same. We were both creations of man to serve the purposes of men, and yet we both became servants of Mother." Sephiroth took a long, slow sip from the glass, then licked dark redness from his pale lips with the tip of his tongue. "Strange, isn't it? What they create always turns against them. I wonder when humans will learn that lesson."  
"Why are we here, Sephiroth?" Heero asked, walking to stand at the sliding glass door that formed the boundary between bedroom and balcony. "Why could we simply not cross back over once you had come for me?"  
Sephiroth turned and leaned his weight against the balcony rail, folding his hands across his chest loosely. "Because I did not want to take you against your will. It is all very well and good for you to feel the tip of the proverbial iceberg in the dream state, but you have no conception of what it means to cross over, to be what I have become." He paused, and sipped from the glass again, an act that Heero was beginning to find increasingly erotic every time he watched. "To touch the hearts of stars, to witness souls being born and set free, to know the width and breadth of time and space..." Sephiroth looked at him, and Heero felt his eyes boring into his soul. "These are not things that can be easily put into words." The ice blue eyes closed, hidden behind alabaster lids.  
"And I fell in love with you, watching you." Sephiroth spoke in a whisper. "I had to know if you could love me, if you would love me, as I love you. And love is not something I say so lightly as mortals do. You are the first thing that I have truly felt in - well, there are no words for infinite finite time, such as I have known. I want you, Heero, I want to be with you, and you to be with me." Heero watched in shock silence as a single, bright blue tear traced down a white cheek. "I am tired of being alone, with only the voice of Mother to comfort me. I want...I need you."  
Heero bit down on his lower lip, trying to strengthen his resolve. He stepped across the few feet that separated them, though it felt like miles. Sephiroth was curled in on himself, leaning against the railing, the trail of the tear still visible on his skin. This is it; Heero thought to himself, there is no turning back now: it is time to leave all of this behind me.  
He touched Sephiroth's arm lightly, and he looked up, blue eyes with silver flecks rimed in bright blue tears waiting to fall. Heero let his hand move slowly until it rested against the broad chest and looked directly into those alien eyes.  
"No more denial." Heero said in a whisper. "This is what I want."  
Heero leaned forward and up, into a kiss, pressing icy lips against his own. Sephiroth reached around him, and embraced him, and Heero found again just how easy it was to surrender himself. But this time, there was no fear.

* * *

How long the kiss lasted, Heero could not have said. When at last they pulled away from each other, Heero knew that the point of no return had come and passed. Sephiroth ran a long fingered hand through his hair, tracing freezing fingertips around the edge of his ear slowly. Heero could feel his arousal, could feel the slight quickening of his pulse and breath, and the heat of his skin. Sephiroth's free hand moved down his back slowly, and rested on one hip, fingers tucked into the band of his pants loosely.  
"If you want this, now is the time to do this." Sephiroth said softly into his ear. All Heero could do was nod and mumble something inarticulate as he felt himself drowning in a sea of silver hair. The smell of it was incredible, like some exotic flower, sweet but subtly musky and Heero wondered how he had never noticed it before.  
Sephiroth pulled away slowly, pulling Heero with him off the balcony and back into the bedroom, towards the standard size bed that dominated the center of the small room. Sephiroth gently pushed Heero down to sit on the bed, and then turned and closed the sliding door and the window blinds. With an inhuman grace, Sephiroth shed the shirt, revealing the white, unblemished upper body Heero had seen rising from the icy waters of a mountain lake only a night before. With a soft tug, he reached for Heero's shirt and pulled it over his head. Heero felt a twinge of shame at his relatively lightly built body, its light fuzz of dark colored hair, and the myriad of scars that marred his skin in comparison to Sephiroth's unblemished, well built, hairless form.  
"None of that," Sephiroth said with a light tone as he ran his fingertips over the outline of Heero's ribs. "Remember, I created this body in the image of my shell. You have lived over a fifth of a century in yours, and had a hard time of it at that." And with that, he bent down and kissed Heero lightly on the forehead.  
Heero, without a second thought, used the closeness to unfasten Sephiroth's pants. Sephiroth smirked at him, and finished the job, revealing the rest of his body. He's even more perfect in the light, Heero thought as he let his hands rest on the sharp shapes of Sephiroth's hips. Sephiroth smiled down at him, and used his own hands to guide Heero's to where he wanted them. Heero obliged gladly, wrapping both hands around the thick shaft of his dick, feeling that same preternatural cold radiating even from there.  
What is it going to feel like to have that inside of me, Heero wondered, and he heard Sephiroth chuckle.  
You will find out, I promise, came the thought in Sephiroth's voice in his head. But for now, remind me why I became mortal, and show me what you know.  
Heero silenced the smirking mental voice by pulling Sephiroth's hips towards his face, and swallowing his entire length, letting the head rest against the back of his throat. Sephiroth groaned, and braced himself against Heero's shoulder, his long fingers gripping with bruising force against the skin. Letting his tongue and throat muscles work as though trying to swallow him completely, Heero set a steady rhythm, and listened to the rewarding moans of pleasure that seemed to be all Sephiroth could now vocalize.  
This was very definitely what he wanted.

* * *

How easy it was to finally let go of himself again, Heero found. Sephiroth was more than gentile, yet he was far from soft. His guidance was unspoken, firm, a touch or a movement, but it communicated his desires far better than words could ever have. Heero surrendered himself to those careful movements, following them without hesitation, finding himself lost in following every whim of the silver haired form that he found himself bound to serve. Naked together, they entwined around each other on the top of the sheets, lost in a convolution of roving hands and lips.  
And suddenly, Sephiroth paused, pushing Heero slightly back and away, and looked questioningly at Heero. Heero looked back, confused, but unwilling to break the silence that was only punctuated with the sound of his own breathing with a question. Sephiroth gently laid a hand on Heero's chest, its icy touch a sudden shock to his system, and repeated the questioning look. Heero still did not understand.  
May I? Came the questioning though in his mind, careful and quiet.  
May you what? Heero thought, wondering suddenly at this change of mood.  
I did not wish to force you further than you were ready. Sephiroth's expression was strangely pained with longing. I want you, but I do not wish to hurt you.  
Heero understood. Could he, he wondered? If he could or could not, he would not know unless he tried.  
How? He asked as Sephiroth moved a hand across his face.  
Sephiroth answered with a guiding nudge, guiding him on to his stomach, letting his legs brace him over the side of the bed, and lifting his back to a convenient height for Sephiroth's much taller standing form. Sephiroth laid both hands gently on his rear, their icy fingers caressing the light bronzed skin, one of the few areas relatively free of scars on his body. Heero laid his head to the side, and closed his eyes, trusting in Sephiroth's guiding touch to lead him as he would need to move.  
Two of the icy long fingers traced down the crack of his ass, resting and pressing lightly on the outside of his anus for just a moment before moving on to touch the back of his balls. Then, a single finger followed the same route, stopping again at his ass, pushing gently, but more firmly than before.  
Relax.  
Heero tried, and found the finger slowly pushing deeper in, sliding through the outer rings of muscle. The tip of the finger probed deep inside of him, brushing lightly over the bulge that was his prostate, making his dick twitch slightly at the stimulation. Then slowly it withdrew, only to have the process repeated with two fingers, pushing inside of him, stretching the outer muscles into relaxing more. Heero groaned softly, the mix of pleasure and pain just barely registering to his brain as the two fingers withdrew from him.  
Suddenly, Heero felt the cold touch of something much thicker than a finger on his ass. He forced himself to relax, feeling the head of Sephiroth's shaft push gently against him. Sephiroth laid his hands gently against Heero's hips, and pushed slightly harder, yet still did not penetrate.  
Please, Heero begged mentally, Please just do it. Please.  
Sephiroth obliged, and sharply thrust forward, pushing himself inside to the very base of his dick. Heero was in shock for a moment, his nervous system slow to react. And then suddenly his mind flooded with the signal of pleasure and pain as cold flooded his body. It felt as though he had been penetrated by an icicle or a glacial core, thick and freezing him from the inside out. Heero felt himself nearly over come by the sensation. If Duo had been addicting, this was better than any drug or chemical, Heero thought, even than pure adrenaline.  
Sephiroth, after a moments pause, slowly pulled back, nearly his entire length, and then repeated the sharp, forward slam. Heero grunted, and then groaned as Sephiroth withdrew again and set a more gentile, slow rhythm. All Heero could do was moan and loose himself in the motion, to which Sephiroth added his hand wrapped firmly around Heero's shaft, moving in motion with his body.  
How long it lasted, Heero could not have said. Hours, days, it didn't seem to matter, nothing except the sensations that flooded his brain and the longing for release that loomed behind it. Then suddenly, he was acutely aware of his body's need for that release, the feeling of his own fluids building up within him, the pressure waiting for the point of no return. And then Sephiroth gave a tight, controlled jerk, plunging sharply into Heero, and Heero knew he would not last but another few moments.  
Come with me, Heero. Sephiroth thoughts said in his mind, like a whisper in his ear. Come with me please.  
And Heero felt the deep spasm shake through Sephiroth's body, the hard jerking twitch of his dick inside of him, pushing deeper in. That was enough, it drove him completely over the edge, his own body letting go, dick twitching as white come spurted from him onto the sheets. Sephiroth moaned deeply and gripped his sides, holding Heero firmly against his belly, and Heero felt the final twitches of orgasm shiver through him.  
Sephiroth slowly withdrew, and lay down on the bed beside Heero, who dared not move from his current position. Sephiroth looked over at him, a soft smirking grin on his face.  
"Looks like you could use a towel." He said as he produced a thick, white cotton towel from out of thin air and laid it on the small pool of semen on the bedspread under Heero. Heero gratefully collapsed on to it, and wiped himself off, vaguely wondering what color Sephiroth's come was.

* * *

Heero didn't know how much later it was in the night when he woke, but the cold night air blowing in from the open deck door brought barely a slight whisper of traffic. Above the building roof outside, the sky was still the dark mix of indigo and peach that the night sky of the city always seemed to be. He was distantly aware of the other body in his bed, taller and heavier than himself; Sephiroth was sleeping, as best Heero could tell, since there was no movement of breath or stirring of limbs, his back facing Heero who lay on his back. Heero found himself staring at the ceiling, lost in thought, or more correctly, lost in the absence of thought.  
How much had his world changed, and how suddenly, Heero found himself thinking. A month ago, he would never have thought to have anyone past his threshold, let alone his bed. And then the nightmares had come, and everything had lost its order and meaning, and just as suddenly, there was this new person, if that was what he was, in his life. And just who was this, this stranger from dreams and the bottom of a mountain lake? A god, Heero wondered, or something completely different? Heero could only begin to imagine, and dared not to try.  
And as suddenly as he had appeared, Heero found himself in that delirious state he knew was the first phase of some deep emotional attachment. Whether it was love, Heero could not say, since he did not think he had ever known it. But that was wrong, he knew, thinking suddenly of Trowa. But that, like so much else in his life, he had learned not to regret.  
Yet now, laying in the darkness of his bedroom, feeling the weight of the second body in his bed, Heero found himself remembering the last time he had felt that same feeling, shortly before Wufei's assassination six months after the end of second attempt at Operation Meteor, when he and Trowa had found, at least for a month, peace in their lives. It had been before Relena, before his breakdown, and both had cost him the modicum of normalcy he had found with Trowa. At least it had been something to hold on to, some constant point in his life at a time when the world was suddenly in a chaos. After spending nearly a month in hospital recovering from his injuries, more at the doctors' insistence than his own, Heero had found himself with nowhere to go, and nothing in the world for him, a warrior with no wars left to fight. And then Trowa had, in his plain, unassuming way, stepped in, and Heero had followed, wanting nothing more than to not have to think about the world beyond the window.  
How it had come to be all it had become, Heero never really understood. Somehow, Trowa had known about Duo, known about nearly everything, and had simply accepted it as it was in his silent, expressionless way. Yet there were no boundaries between them, it seemed, none of the usual distancing of two people sharing space but not sharing a bed. Heero still could not remember who had been the first to broach the subject, only that it had not been with words, but with action, but he did remember the silent, mutually accepting way it was the first time, with no words spoken, only nods and guiding hands between them. Every time, it had been nearly the same way, and it was never talked about between them, it simply was. And it stayed that way, at least until Heero established himself, and, with Trowa's constant help, found a place for himself in San Francisco, and then he had gone his separate way from Trowa.  
He felt a strange pang of guilt, thinking about Trowa, especially remembering those silent nights that often started simply sitting down to watch a movie, and ended more often than not with that unspoken affirmation of if not love, then deep trust. And Heero paused a moment, and wondered absently how Trowa was doing. But he dared not let his thoughts linger, nor himself get further distracted. He was confused, a state he was hardly used to, and he sought order in his thoughts.  
Suddenly, an icy hand lightly touched his shoulder, and Heero barely curtailed the start of shock. He looked over to see Sephiroth regarding him with calm, cool eyes, the silver specks moving lazily across the blue irises like gnats on a summer breeze. Heero started to sit up, but Sephiroth held him in place without moving the hand from his shoulder.  
"Your mind is an open book to me, Heero, if I wish it to be." Sephiroth's face was blank, no emotion showing at all. Heero felt a cold chill of fear and guilt spike through his gut. "You're thoughts are confused, and I suppose that is my fault, for having kept silent about too much. But," Sephiroth paused, eyes roving over Heero, expression unchanging, "I find your thoughts, interesting."  
Heero started to stutter a response, to apologize, to somehow explain himself, but found no words. Sephiroth simply smiled, and laughed softly.  
"You have no need to explain yourself, dear one. No, I am not upset by your thoughts of past lovers, though I do find your relationship a bit perplexing." He raised a delicate silver eyebrow, smile turning into a grin. "No need for feelings of guilt, your past is what has made you who you are. And you are at a time of turmoil, it is only natural you look back to a stable time in your life."  
Sephiroth lay back, looking up at the featureless ceiling. "Tomorrow, after you have slept well, I will answer your questions. And then," the blue eyes closed, and the face settled into a mask of blissful peace, "Then you may decide how you progress from here."


	3. Chapter 3

Heero stood looking out onto the rooftop garden, the wind tugging at his hair, as wild as it always had been. He was lost in thought once again, now pondering all he had heard from Sephiroth about what lay ahead for him, if he wanted it. Sephiroth had spent the morning explaining, as best he could, and now Heero felt the confusion from the night before melt away, but in its place had come deep turmoil.  
"I have no words to explain the place I was, other than it is not this place, nor any other place, but all places are accessible from it, across the infinite spans of the universe." Sephiroth had said. "I found myself there after I had moved beyond my world, when Mother took me up to be one with her. I do not understand it, but I know one thing of it more than any. It is empty, except for Mother, and you and I would be beyond the reach of all other worlds there." He had gone on, talking of how difficult it was to be pulled back into a physical state, but how every iota of time was observable from the place Sephiroth had been. It could be made to seem as if it were any place, any time, any where, but it always was what it was: empty.  
"Nor do I have words to describe what I am. I thought, at first, I would be a god. But I was more than that, and less at once." The look in Sephiroth's eyes had been distant and troubled. "What I am, I am a part of all things, and yet somehow I am beyond them all too. If I listen, I can hear even the smallest soul's life force, and feel its pain, its joy, its hunger, its satisfaction, from every world, throughout the universe. And somehow, I have powers I cannot understand, nor even know the limits of. And often, I wonder, if I am not as unlimited as the universe, were I to only extend myself far enough."  
And Heero was to become like this, if he were to cross over, to become as Sephiroth put it. He stood looking out on the garden, feeling the wind, smelling the distant smell of the bay underlying the smells of the city on the wind, and the cool, damp smell of the garden. To leave behind this world, and everything in it, and in fact all things physical, forever possibly, and exchange them for the width and breadth of the universe at a whim. This world had no place for him any more, a solder without wars was nothing. It would be a small thing, a small price, to give up the physical of the world, for everything beyond it.  
But what of those he would leave behind, he wondered. Duo and Quatre had a life to themselves, though Heero regretted not having saved Quatre from Duo, he knew there was nothing he could do. That drama would play its self out, and Heero could already see that Trowa, ever protective of the fragile blond that he still harbored some deep feeling for, would intervene before it went as far as it had with his own ordeal with Duo. The results, Heero could not foresee, but they would play out with or without him in the equation. And perhaps the other survivors, as they thought of themselves, would be better off without him as a complication.  
As he watched a seagull wheel above the garden, he felt the sudden presence of Sephiroth behind him. Time to leave this all behind me, Heero thought, just as I left the killing and madness behind me, the next step is this. This word no longer needs me.  
"Have you decided, Heero?" Sephiroth said softly.  
Heero watched the gull flap its wings, and soar upwards into the blue sky with an empty, lonely cry.  
"Hai."

* * *

The task ahead of him was daunting, Heero realized, but not impossible. Sephiroth had laid out for him a strict regiment of purification of the body and mind, insisting that these were required before anything else could be under taken. His body had grown used to regular food and sleep, and it protested the sudden return to fasting and sleep deprivation. But it remembered the old trainings, and returned quickly, once the basic protests had been overcome.  
For two weeks, though it felt like much longer and much shorter a time all at once, Heero slowly cut down his intake of food and his sleep time. At last, Heero found himself once again surviving on a bare minimum of food, and no sleep. He felt strangely alive, and alert, his senses sharper seeming than they had been since long before. Too, he felt calm, almost serene, his mind filled with a peacefulness he had never known before. Soon, very soon, he would pass from this world, and be beyond its pain and violence. And that thought filled him with joy beyond words.  
But there was an equal joy in his life, an equal state of bliss. Each night, Sephiroth drew him closer, rewarding him more, allowing him to feel more each night than he ever thought he would feel. The pleasure was addictive, but he did not hunger for it until he was given it, and there was no pang of guilt nor fear of its being revoked. Heero knew nothing beyond the rhythm of the days, and the icy cold of Sephiroth's touch. And even the icy cold of the alabaster skin faded with the time, no longer burning him from without and then from within. Sephiroth's touch felt as any other touch by the end of the two weeks of fasting and depravation, but it was still what he hungered for, and all he sought.  
The night that marked the end of two weeks of the fast, Sephiroth and Heero sat together on the black futon couch in the small, unadorned living room. Sephiroth had been oddly silent that night, even more so than usual, if that were possible. Heero felt something stir in his mind, something beyond himself, that felt like Sephiroth's presence.  
/It is time for the next stage, my dear one./ Came Sephiroth's though in his mind.  
"Next?" Heero said, looking at Sephiroth, who regarded him with passive emptiness.  
/You must seek out your last attachment to this planet, that one who still ties you here./ Sephiroth lay long graceful fingers on Heero's knee, and griped it firmly. /You will know the one, and you will know the way. But with that bond in tact, you cannot cross over as a whole being./  
"I don't..." He started to say he didn't understand, and then, he understood. There was only one last tie for him in this world, and though he would give it up willingly, it still bound him even now. "Forgive me that was a foolish question." Heero shook his head.  
/It is best you do this now, while you are pure of body and mind. Else it will be difficult for you./  
Heero nodded. "Then I should go now."  
Sephiroth looked at him with a strangely vacant expression, but the hand on his knee tightened its grip subtly but firmly. /Do not forget your destiny, perfect solder./  
Heero bowed his head, and reached for the phone.

* * *

"This is completely out of character, Heero. Is there something wrong?" Trowa looked at him with open concern.  
"Nothing is wrong, Trowa, nothing at all. I just needed to see you, and talk to you." Heero sat down on the couch that he remembered too well from his last visit to Trowa's home as Trowa shut the door and bolted it shut behind him. "I came to say goodbye, Trowa."  
"Goodbye? What do you mean?" Trowa walked over and seemed about to sit, but did not. "What is going on, Heero?"  
Heero shook his head. "I don't have a way to explain it, Trowa. I'm going away soon, and I will not ever be coming back to Earth. I can't tell you where I'm going, because I don't really know myself." Trowa looked at him with narrowed green eyes.  
"Is this some secret mission? Surely they haven't summoned you up out of retirement for something?" Heero shook his head. "Worse, you haven't killed someone, have you?" The concern was serious in Trowa's eyes, but Heero could have almost taken it for a joke. "Surely this isn't necessary, Heero. Whatever it is, someone else can do it."  
"I have to go, Trowa." Heero sighed. "I wanted to say goodbye first, before I leave."  
"I can't pretend to understand, Heero, but if it means enough to you to come all this way, out of the blue, and very out of the norm, then I only know it must be important." Trowa sighed. "Why come to me, Heero?"  
Heero looked up at the taller ex pilot from where he sat, and the memory of that unspoken affirmation seemed to be conveyed in Heero's eyes. Trowa looked pale, and suddenly vulnerable, and sat down hard on the couch next to Heero.  
"It really meant all of that to you?" Trowa said softly.  
Heero nodded silently, and put a brave hand on Trowa's knee.  
"I didn't know, I didn't dare hope that it did." Trowa was suddenly seemingly lost in thought. "I don't know why it happened, or how, but it just felt so right." Trowa sighed, and started to say more, but Heero stopped him.  
"Don't say any more, Trowa. Words only ruin that memory, and you know it." Trowa nodded. "I came here to say goodbye, to make whatever peace I needed to make with you." Heero laid a hand on top of one of Trowa's, and smiled inwardly when Trowa laid his other hand on top of it.  
Trowa looked up at him, and that unspoken acceptance passed between them like a breath of wind. Heero laid the palm of his hand against Trowa's cheek, and felt the burning heat beneath the skin. Trowa closed his eyes, and sighed into the hand, pulling gently against his face.  
"Heero, this shouldn't-", Heero stopped him, placing his fingers against Trowa's lips.  
Once more, like it was then, Heero moved his lips to say. Trowa kissed the tips of his fingers in response, and relaxed visibly.  
"Gaman dekinai," Trowa whispered softly. I cannot resist.

* * *

Silence is a powerful force in the universe. It is the natural state in the universe; sound is the disruption of order, the introduction of chaos. Silence is a static state, and as such, is the antithesis of life. Silence can overwhelm living beings, driving them to fight against it, or if unable to, they may be driven insane. But there is a power in silence, as unnatural as it seems to living things, that is awe inspiring and awful all at once, and this is a power that living things inherently respond to.  
In silence unbroken except by the subtle sounds of movement, Trowa and Heero broke the bond that had stood between them, coming together in a quiet moment which seemed to last far longer than it did. For Heero, it wasn't the moment that mattered however; it was the flood of old memories that poured through his head. He was awash in a sea of remembering, every movement from the external mirrored by a surge in the ocean of past events.  
Exchanging guiding touches, the occasional kiss, the two wound themselves around each other on the couch, lying together intertwined. Trowa's hands roved slowly, softly, over Heero's stomach beneath his shirt, at once teasing, and puling Heero back against his own body, rubbing against him gently. How many memories Heero had of the same movement, repeated either here, on this couch, or in the shower, or on the bed, he could not count, and felt each instant happen in tandem with the motions of the present. Trowa's hand strayed lower, sliding beneath the waistline of his pants, reaching and then fingertips brushing against the head of his dick, slowly wrapping around it with a gentile squeeze. Heero gasped silently, and closed his eyes, aware suddenly of how awakened his senses truly were.  
There was no filter of the mix of pain and pleasure, only the sensation as it should be, as Trowa gently played with him, lingering touches along his length. Trowa pulled his hand free, and separated from the entanglement for a moment to pull off his shoes and pants, and then curled back behind Heero, lips brushing his ear and neck sending shivers along his spine. With a gentile tug Trowa told Heero to do the same and Heero allowed Trowa to help, relishing the heat of Trowa's hands against his skin. Better still, Trowa pulled close against him, letting Heero know what it was he wanted, bare skin from waist to toes touching as fully as it could against Heero's back and legs.  
Heero pushed back, the silent acceptance, as Trowa's hand resumed its wandering, spidery tease across his lower body. Heero felt Trowa's free hand, lying between them, move, and felt the tentative adjustments of Trowa moving himself into place, the head of his dick pushed against, but not pushing against, Heero's ass. Heero breathed out slowly, relaxing his body, feeling the memories surge up and swallow him as Trowa's saliva wet fingers darted around that meeting, preparing for what was inevitable.  
Trowa paused, placing his roving hand against Heero's hip, bracing in preparation. Heero nodded slightly, and Trowa pushed forward, pushing himself into Heero with one deep thrust, grunting deep in his chest as Heero opened his mouth in a silent moan. Heero lost himself then, memory flooding his mind along with the waves of pleasure each outward pull and inward thrust filled him with. He felt himself lost in the moment, unaware of anything then beyond what he felt, reality overwhelmed by the pleasure of the moment. Heero closed his eyes, and let go of himself.

* * *

And when it was over, he was left feeling drained and empty, his mind and body spent totally. But Heero knew he could not linger. And yet, he found himself tempted to stay, just for the night, there in that peaceful moment. He laid on the couch still, Trowa behind him, with his arm across his ribs, both filled with the exhaustion that settled over the body and mind. Gratification, deep and indescribable, filled him with a warm glow of pleasure, overlaying the ache within his spent body. He felt content to do nothing more to stay there, unmoving, until morning. Trowa laid his head against the back of Heero's neck, and Heero could feel the heat of his soft breathing against his skin like the heat from a flame held close to his skin. How wonderful it would be, Heero thought, just to stay here and drown in this heat. The fatigue of the afterglow settled over him heavily, deep from within his body, weighing him down, pulling him towards sleep.  
But Sephiroth's reminder chided him from within his mind. He had to leave, and soon. Heero waited, and listened to Trowa's ever slowing breathing. Soon it became deep and regular, entering the first stages of sleep. Still Heero waited. Finally, Trowa's breathing settled in to a shallower, regular cycle, the breathing of one deeply asleep. Now was his time to leave.  
He extracted himself from the couch, slowly detangling himself from Trowa, trying not to disturb his sleep. Trowa did not stir, not at all, even as Heero stood and pulled back on his pants and shoes. Even when Heero turned to look back at Trowa on the couch, there was not a stir of movement other than breathing. Watching Trowa, with his eyes closed and face lost in the relaxation of sleep, Heero felt despair close its icy fist on his heart, yet the feeling was strangely distant, far removed from him for all its pain.  
Yet as he closed the door softly behind him and began heading for the elevators, he felt the strange, cold feel of tears on his face.  
"Farewell, Trowa."

* * *

Trowa waited until he heard the door click closed, and then slowly counted to one hundred in his head. Sure then that Heero was gone, he opened his eyes and sat up. Trowa sighed deeply, and leaned back, making no move to dress, and only moved the towel to vaguely cover him. He held his head in his hands, and closed his eyes.  
"He's gone." Trowa said without even bothering to look up.  
In response, the guest bedroom door swung open silently, and a tall, pale skinned man with a disorderly mane of ebony black hair stepped from the darkness inside. Dark eyes looked out of a thin, high cheeked face, focusing on Trowa who did not look up.  
"It was exactly as I said, wasn't it?" The man said, leaning against the bedroom doorway.  
"Exactly," Trowa said. "His skin was like ice, and he smelled like dead flowers. Whatever that was, it wasn't the Heero that I know." Trowa looked up and met the gaze of the dark haired man. "It was horrible; I had no control over myself. None at all. I can't believe I did that, without a second thought. And yet..." Trowa shook his head.  
"You wanted it." The man shrugged, and pushed himself off the door frame, walking towards the couch. "Such is the power that foul thing has over the world, and worse, over those it takes over, such as Heero. It warps and twists will so that it can prey on the darkest desires of the human heart to gain its own goals. I have, unfortunately, seen it before." The man brushed loose strands of hair from his face, and continued. "But he is not too far gone yet. There is still something left of his human nature still. I can still smell the heat in his blood, so Sephiroth has not drained the life from him completely. Not yet."  
"Then, he can still be saved?" Trowa's eyes followed his visitor to the closet.  
The man nodded as he reached for a long, red leather duster coat from the closet. He put it on with a practiced, easy twirl, and turned to look at Trowa.  
"Heero is still human until the moment he crosses into the Life Stream, and as such can still be saved. But if he crosses into the Stream, even for a moment, he will be like Sephiroth, another arm of that deep evil that has tainted the universe." The man pulled a pack of slim, white cigarettes from the coat pocket, and pulled one out. He started to light it, and then stopped, looking at Trowa for a moment. "I have to leave you now, Trowa. I'm sorry, but I must stop Sephiroth, this time for good. I cannot let him claim any more souls."  
Trowa nodded. "Will I see you again?"  
The man shrugged. "I cannot say, because I do not know. But I do hope that I do see you again, someday." The man lit the cigarette, letting its long trail of thin, white smoke rise. "You must take care, Trowa. You have the taint of Sephiroth on your body yourself now. It can be cleansed, but you would not like the way."  
"How? I can already feel the cold settling into my body. How can I be rid of this?" Trowa shivered.  
"There is only one way to be rid of that cold touch." The man started towards the door, turned, and looked at Trowa much as Heero had not long ago. "A bath in freshly let human blood is the only thing that will wash that taint away." He saw the appalled look on Trowa's face and sighed, breathing out a plume of smoke. "I have washed it from my body many times, as I have hunted Sephiroth across worlds, and it never becomes any more pleasant." The man sighed. "I am sorry, Trowa, but I must follow him now, before I loose the scent."  
Trowa nodded, and the man turned to go, but Trowa spoke again. "Vincent," Trowa reached for the drawer in the end table beside the couch, and pulled out a medium caliber hand gun. Vincent turned, and a bloodless smile formed beneath the gracele hook of his nose.  
"Keep it, Trowa. I have no need of it now that I know how to find Sephiroth." Vincent turned, opened the door, stepped across the threshold, and vanished from Trowa's sight as it closed behind him, leaving Trowa alone in the silence of the night.

* * *

"You are back faster than I had expected," Sephiroth said without turning from the garden overlook as Heero came through the door behind him. Heero stopped, waiting for Sephiroth to say more.  
"I am impressed that you came back at all." Sephiroth turned, the unnatural blue of his eyes almost glowing in the dim light. "But you passed that final test much better than I expected."  
"It was a test?" Was all Heero could manage in response.  
"In its way, it was." Sephiroth shrugged, leaning back against the railing. "It was cruel of me, I suppose, but it had to be done that way, or it would not have been successful." Blue eyes narrowed, regarding Heero from across the room. "I had to be sure, had to make sure, that you were ready to cut all ties to this world. You seemed to have done it well, or at least," Sephiroth gave a sniff, as though smelling something unpleasant "as well as you could."  
"What happened, I can explain..." Heero started, fear rising in his gut.  
Sephiroth raised a hand, cutting Heero off. "There is no need to explain, Heero. What happened, happened because it was supposed to happen." Sephiroth crossed the room to Heero, and laid a hand gently on Heero's shoulder. "I sent you there knowing well what would happen. It is no fault of yours other than your human blood."  
Suddenly a smile crossed the pale face, and Sephiroth laughed gently. "Do not worry so much, dear one." Sephiroth held Heero's chin gently between his fingers. "Go and shower, and when you are done, we will make our preparations to leave."  
"Where are we going?" Heero asked.  
"Ah, I have not been idle while you were gone." Sephiroth smiled smugly. "I have found where the Life Stream of this world shows through. The place where we will both return to where we are meant to be." Sephiroth laughed. "As much as your culture thinks they know the world, there is an island in your" Sephiroth paused, trying to remember, "North Atlantic – yes, that's where –  
"And if you ask me how we are getting there, I will remind you that I have already crossed half the globe with you once, and doing it once again is no more troublesome." Sephiroth pushed him towards the bathroom with the hand on his shoulder, a gentile shove. "Now go shower, and get that smell of human skin off of you. And be quick, I feel that we are suddenly under the knife when it comes to time."  
A mile away, Vincent raised his nose to the night wind, searching once more for the trail that he had followed across the continent. Beneath the smell of the city, the automotive stench and the reek of human distress, beneath the smells of the sea and the wind, there lingered a smell distantly described as the sweetly sickening smell of rotting flowers. Vincent smiled, revealing for a moment the curve of overlong canines, and then moved on, his face set in grim determination, walking into the wind.

* * *

A pool of liquid shadow slid its self under the apartment door, silent though there was no reason for stealth. It paused visibly once under, and then slowly solidified upward, like a cat's stretch, into Vincent's tall, frail figure. He stretched once again; popping joints back into place, and then sniffed the air. As he thought, they had been gone only seconds, for the smell of ozone still lingered in the air, overlaying the tainted rot of flowers and the bitter smell of lifeless living flesh.  
Vincent looked around the spartan rooms of the apartment, noting the subtle overlay of personality into the form and function of the place, the preferences for light wood grain and black lacquer, the trend for vertical organization, and all of the other small hints of human logic onto simple patterns. The rooms were too light, too airy by far for his liking, but that was a taste born of a love of darkness and silence, and a somberness that had always been a part of his character. But Vincent noticed more what was missing from the room than anything. There was none of the residual smells and heat of human life except for the faintest scent of warm blood, but even that was old, weeks old, and told Vincent he might quite already be too late to pull yet another victim out of Sephiroth's grasp.  
Walking through the rooms, he found the point at which the ozone smell was strongest, the center of the living room. This then, would have been where Sephiroth opened the door to step across the distance to wherever he had gone. The question was where that place was, one Vincent had to answer in order to follow. Vincent closed his eyes, breathing out deeply, letting his whole body and mind relax, then breathed in slowly, analyzing every particle of air. Sea salt, atmospheric ozone, basalt, brine, artic ice: the smells of an island in a northern ocean.  
"Yes, that would make sense." Vincent said softly to himself, breathing out without opening his eyes. Vincent sighed, flexing the claws of his artificial hand, and stretched his jaws. Now was the part he hated the most.  
He breathed out hard, emptying his lungs, and then sucked in breath, focusing on a knot of muscle in his gut. Then, like a shudder, he flexed his entire body, letting loose a flood of power that ran down his nerves like a shock of electrical current. Dark, bloody wings unfolded themselves from his back, ripping through flesh, stretching as the unfurled, and Vincent's jaw opened in a silent scream of pain that flashed fangs and serrated back molars.  
Collapsing on to one knee, he breathed heavily for a moment, letting his body settle again, tasting the blood in his mouth brought up from his guts with the change. The pain and trauma of the change never lessened, but its necessity increased his recovery speed. Though not the havoc that it caused his internal organs. He stood, and opened his wings, fanning them to their full span before pulling them tightly back in, folding them carefully across his back. Only this way, as this Chaotic, could he travel as Sephiroth did.  
"This time, Sephiroth, it will not be your victim I kill. This time," Vincent wiped a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "This time, it will be you."  
And he smiled, bloodless lips pressed thin, and stepped forward, crossing the boundaries of distance as easily as a threshold.

* * *

Lightening ripped across a sky of boiling slate clouds, a mirror of the sea below that churned and frothed with the wind which lashed across its surface with an icy, bitter bite. Alone in the middle of the chaos of the perpetual storm of the north sea, a crag of an island, a cluster of hexagonal basalt pillars around the rising scar of a crater , rose like a blister. It would have been like any other isolated, forgotten crag in the sea, but for the pale blue light that flooded upward from within the crater, lighting the clouds above and sea around like a torch.  
Heero looked around himself, standing on the strange, hexagonal basalt formations, feeling suddenly fragile and deeply mortal in the presence of the sea, storm, and the icy, fiery blue light. The wind tore at him, biting him with ice crystals too fine to settle as snow, and the lightening roared defiance at his presence, threatening him with the primal voice the first humans had scampered from in fear before they had even sense enough to look up. He wanted to turn, run, to find shelter from this, but there was none. Fear was something he had once never known, but now, he knew it in its most instinctual: the fear of the unknown.  
Sephiroth stood beside him, untouched by the wind except for his long, silver hair, that danced in the wind like a myriad of silver ribbons. The thunder was not a threat for him, but a trumpet call of triumph. The blue light lit his eyes with an ethereal fire, sending the silver sparks into a spasmodic dance of light and even faint lines of glowing silver light showed beneath his skin, outlining the paths of veins. He laughed, his voice an answer to the thunder, a wordless call of victory to whatever there was to hear it.  
"Mother waits for us, dear one," Sephiroth said, laying a powerful hand on Heero's cringing shoulder. "Come, come…" Sephiroth laughed, a mad sound, "We must not keep her waiting too long." And with that, he shoved Heero ahead of him, walking across the beach of hexagonal stone, towards the crater's slope. Reluctantly, Heero obliged.  
The crested the ridge of the crater's caldera long minutes later, and stood looking into a seething blue pit of light that filled the crater's bowl like a lake. Heero hesitated, suddenly all of this made far too real for him to face at once. Sephiroth gave no pause, only nudged Heero forward none too gently, pushing him onward, down to the caldera shore below. Unsteadily Heero stepped down the shear loose stone slope, bare feet scraping painfully on the basalt shards, the cold stone cutting into his feet like razors as he stumbled more than walked until at last he stood by the edge of the glowing pool of light.  
Sephiroth's face was a wicked, gleeful smile, laughing as loudly as the thunder. "At last, at last!" He all but sang, arms raised up towards the thunder heads. "Now at last, I will have what is mine. Oh yes, Mother, thank you, thank you!" Heero could only stand and watch in amazement as Sephiroth rejoiced, shivering in the cold wind.  
At last, Sephiroth seemed to come back, though still smiling, and faced Heero, placing hands on his shoulders. "Now, now is the time, dear one, oh yes. Now you will go meet Mother, and be taken up to her. And then, oh and the, you will be with me for all time." Sephiroth roughly pulled him forward and kissed him, wrapping his arms around Heero so tightly Heero felt his breath leaving his lungs.  
Suddenly, Sephiroth pulled back, blue eyes regarding Heero blankly. "Now, you will claim your destiny, Heero Yui, now you will receive Mother's reward for all her solders. And," Sephiroth suddenly turned away from him, looking up towards the crater's ridge, "And no one, not even you, can stop it!" Sephiroth suddenly bellowed. "Have you come to kill yet another one, Vincent? Have you!? If you are, come and show yourself, murderer. No more of this sulking in the shadows, Vincent, no more!"  
Slowly, from his hiding place behind the ridge, Vincent rose, spreading his wings. With a single, graceful leap, he landed several yards from Sephiroth at the edge of the light, wings flexing and folding as he balanced.  
"No, Sephiroth, I am not here for him." Vincent said softly. "I am here to kill you."

* * *

Sephiroth laughed, a mad sound that made Heero pull back and away from him, stepping closer to the edge of the light without realizing it.  
"Then come, Vincent, if you have come to kill me, now there is no better time." Sephiroth spread his arms, as if welcoming a blow. "I wear flesh and blood, frail and mortal, just as you." Sephiroth stepped towards Vincent, the motion threatening. "The Masamune is long gone, Vincent, its blade cannot hurt you now. All that is left is this lonely, torn soul and body." Sephiroth smiled and evil, oily smile across the icy air at Vincent.  
"How many more worlds would you purge if you had the Black Materia again, Sephiroth?" Vincent asked, flexing his metal claws. "How many more worlds would you infect with Jenova's taint? How many more lives will you take before Her foul work is done?"  
Sephiroth's eyes narrowed. "As many lives as it must take. Her work is the work of the Universe." Sephiroth seemed to hesitate. "She is the soul of existence, Vincent, and you should know the truth before you speak such lies."  
"Lies? You are the one speaking lies, Sephiroth." Vincent growled. "You never learned the truth of your birth, nor the truth about Jenova. You think that mass of cancerous tainted cells was your mother? She was only a contaminant in the system, Sephiroth, another of Hojo's sick and twisted experiments. You are Lucrecia's child by blood and birth, Sephiroth, you are her flesh more than you were ever Jenova's. And do you know who your father was, Sephiroth, do you?" Vincent snarled angrily. "It was Hojo. He sired you, and you are nothing more than a perversion of the life Lucrecia was trying to bring into the world."  
"Liar!" Sephiroth bellowed. "She has told me herself, Mother tells me the truth! Hojo may have made me, but I am the child of Jenova! I am the last of the Ancients, and I have attained godhood as was my destiny!"  
Vincent spread his wings, and narrowed darkly glowing eyes. "I will let you kill no more, monster." Vincent growled low.  
"Monster? I am no more a monster than you, Vincent. We were both made, and worse, made by the same hand. At least you avenged yourself on him. I unfortunately had no such chance." Sephiroth stepped closer to Vincent, who did not back away. "Did killing Hojo make the dreams go away, Vincent? Did she stop screaming in your dreams?" Sephiroth stepped forward again, looming closer with each question. "She bore me into this life, this torment, Vincent, from her own flesh I was made. Don't you think I wished just as much to punish Hojo for that as for making me?"  
They were only a foot apart suddenly, and Sephiroth stopped, looking strait into Vincent's face. "You still dream her, and that's why you hunt me: the perversion of life born from your beloved's body." Sephiroth snarled at Vincent, "Do you think I asked to be born as such?!"  
"No one asks to be born." Vincent said without stepping back from Sephiroth's press. "I kill you to save worlds, not for my own vendettas. No longer can you be let run free."  
"Foolish mortal." Sephiroth said with a laugh, and turned away from Vincent dismissing his presence.  
In the instant of the turn, Vincent lunged, lashing out with his clawed hand, reaching for Sephiroth. The claws raked across Sephiroth's ribs, cutting to the bone, spilling silver blood across torn black leather and pale skin. Sephiroth yelled, a groan of pain and outrage, clasping at his side as he fell to one knee. Vincent's roar of rage opened up a reply to the cacophony of thunder as he lunged forwards once again, seeking flesh with his claws, feeling the shift complete its self mid lunge, his body taken over by the monster within him.  
There was no conscious thought after that, only the spray of silver blood, the reek of dead flowers, and the dying cries of a god.

* * *

Forgotten in the instant are often the smallest details. In the instant that Vincent's claws raked across Sephiroth side, Heero Yui stepped backward with a cry of shock and horror. His foot found no surface, only empty space, and slowly he fell backwards, watching the spray of silver blood as Vincent tore into Sephiroth rise as he fell into blue light.  
The blue light closed over Heero's head, immersing him in the sensation of warm, thick fluid. A current in the light pulled at him, tugging him down and away from the surface before he could react. Overcome, he struggled against the pull of the current, trying to regain the surface, struggling to reach air. He held his breath until it burned in his lungs, his body screaming for air. Yet still he could not seem to swim back to the surface as some powerful current pulled him further down deeper into the light. Heero began to panic, to flail, feeling his lungs demand to breath even against the knowledge that if he breathed, he would drown.  
(Breathe.)  
Heero stopped flailing. The voice had resonated through the liquid light, through his body, making his entire body the ear that heard the voice. He tried to swim again, but found himself sinking like a stone. Black spots danced in his vision.  
(Breathe in. No harm will come to you.)  
Heero realized he had no choice. He would pass out soon, and he would breathe then one way or another. And it would be better, he thought distantly, to die under my own power, than to die unconscious. And so he breathed out, watching the bubbles of dead air escape, and then breathed in.  
The same warm fluid sensation that was exterior filled his throat and mouth, flooding into his body, and filling his lungs. He gagged, choking on the liquid in his lungs as the residual air rose to the top and escaped in large bubbles as his diaphragm lurched, trying to expel the fluid from his lungs. He panicked again, flailing as he sunk deeper, and tried to scream, but found he only breathed in more warm liquid.  
(Be still, and breathe.)  
And his body stopped fighting. And he breathed. The warmth of the fluid light filled his body, and suffused through his body. He felt peaceful, sinking deeper into the light, his body floating limply as it drifted in the currents of the light. How is this, he wondered, that I am still aware. I must be dead, drowned in this, Heero thought, and this must be the hell I am damned to.  
(You live, you are. Now is the time.)  
Heero closed his eyes, yet found it no different from his eyes open. The pale blue light flooded through everything. And then something simply let go, a relaxing of some binding that released the torrent. Heero suddenly was caught in it, the current swelling and rising, washing around him, flooding through him, washing him away.  
There are no words for the experience of this. Experience is even the wrong word, for there to be experience there must be something to experience. The duality of existence and non existence, being and not being, even thing and not thing: all of this is without meaning - even meaning and no meaning mean nothing.  
This is the presence of all and nothing, of emptiness and everything.

* * *

"What happened to him, Vincent?" Trowa's look betrayed the concern he tried to hide.  
"There are no words for what happened to him. He is still who he was, but he has been made more. How much more, I cannot say. I am not sure even he knows how much he has been changed."  
Together they stood looking across the cityscape of uptown, the domes alight with the glow of the buildings beneath, many pierced by the spires of taller buildings that towered towards the star studded night sky. Trowa put his hand on the glass of the plate window, eyes seeing only the lonely, dark figure perched on the spire of a building rising from the neighboring dome. Vincent stood beside Trowa, eyes watching the same figure, but with a much different expression.  
"How much longer will he stay out there?" Trowa asked.  
"Again, I can't say. He is coming to terms with what he is." Vincent placed a comforting hand on Trowa's shoulder. "I can much relate to what he feels, but he must feel it a thousand times over from what I felt."  
"He won't become like..." Trowa trailed off, looking at Vincent fearfully.  
"No. There is none of the taint of Jenova on him, nor any residual of Sephiroth's being still in him. He will be nothing like them. But what he will be like, I have no way to tell."  
Outside in the darkness, the figure stirred, shifting its perched weight. The being that once had been Heero Yui shifted to sit back, easing his weight off his knees. He stretched, full body extending its self, every muscle flexing and relaxing, including the slew of new ones across his back and shoulders. With them, he flexed the most outward sign of his change, a pair of white pinions with an almost ten foot span, and carefully refolded them. He settled back in, and pulled his knees to his chest, resting his head on them.  
What is this I have become, he wondered.  
(You are what you are meant to be.) The voice whispered to him in the night wind. (The world still has need of such as you, and will have even greater need very soon.)  
What am I supposed to do?  
(You will be, and continue to be. And you will do what you need to do.) The voice rippled through his hair, like the touch of vocal fingers. (And that is all you will do.)  
Heero closed his eyes, and it was only with the next breath of wind that he felt the cool evaporation of tears on his cheeks

**Author's Note:**

> Something is stalking Heero Yuy's dreams. And that something has the ability to stride between worlds. And it wants more than just dreams.


End file.
